the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 31 Jul 2023
Developing the Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System – SIOS
Abstract. We present an overview of the current gaps in knowledge and infrastructure based on an overall synthesis of all recommendations developed as the main outcome of the annual State of Environmental Science in Svalbard (SESS) reporting of the Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS). Recommendations from the first four years of SESS reporting represent the point of view of the wide scientific community operating the large observing system implemented in Svalbard (SIOS) since 2018, and aim to identify the scientific potential to further develop the observing system. The recommendations are bottom-up inputs for a continuous process that aims to accomplish the vision and mission of SIOS: optimising, integrating and further developing the observing system in an Earth System Science (ESS) perspective. The primary outcome of the synthesis work is the evidence that ESS in SIOS has, during the first 4 years of operation, naturally developed from individual scientists or smaller groups of scientists to larger disciplinary international groups of scientists working together within the different environments (atmosphere, cryosphere, marine and terrestrial environments). It is clear that strategic efforts towards interdisciplinarity are necessary for operating fully at ESS scale in Svalbard. As Svalbard is experiencing the largest ongoing warming in the Arctic and worldwide, SIOS is in a unique position to perform a full-scale study of all processes impacting ESS dynamics and controlling the water cycle, using all parts of the SIOS observation network, with a large potential for increasing the understanding of key mechanisms in the Earth System. We also identify the potential to upscale Svalbard-based observations collected in SIOS to pan-Arctic scale, and to global scale, contributing to full scale ESS.
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RC1: 'Comment on esd-2023-18', Anonymous Referee #1, 21 Sep 2023
As far as the manuscript goes this contribution is valuable as an update on the status of SIOS. However, it does come across as somewhat bureaucratic.
That being said, the links between the disciplines are still not well developed and topics are scattered. The write up is weak on lower atmospheric topics that directly tie to the cryosphere, marine, and terrestrial domains. Where are the studies on precipitation, its changing phase, and the contributions of atmospheric rivers to extreme events, all key parts of the water cycle? The inclusion of M/LTI studies seems like a stretch in this context.
I expected such a write up to be couched in terms of the big science questions, like trends and variability of atmospheric and oceanic heat into the Arctic across this key, rapidly changing location. Also what can this one site tell us about Arctic changes as a whole; is it an extreme local anomaly? There is just some consideration of this aspect.
Some more effort by the authors to provide a broader and impactful context for extensive measurements from Svalbard would be a valuable exercise and is recommended.
Technical:
Figure 2 would be much more communicative if redone by making use of color to discriminate between the different measurements.
Check the references: References quoted on lines 56, 94 and 105 are missing. Is Cnossen (2020) used in the ext?
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2023-18-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Ilkka Matero, 02 Jan 2024
It is appreciated that the manuscript idea is well-received. Text addressing such observation systems and their development might of course appear somewhat bureaucratic, but we do not agree that presenting the structure and its development based on work from so many institutions over more than 10 years is presented in a too bureaucratic way.
One of the overall outcomes of the SIOS work so far is indeed that the links between the environments/disciplines are not yet fully developed, which is as expected given the development phase SIOS has reached. But this is also identified as a clear gap in the manuscript, and recommendations on ways to improve the interdisciplinarity are included.
Svalbard itself is a major research hub for the M/LTI community with a multitude of instrumentation dedicated to the field located on and around the archipelago, as discussed in the SIOS SESS reports. If we are to understand the entire Earth System then we cannot treat the M/LTI region as inconsequential. As discussed in line 244 - 'we must quantify and understand in detail all physical processes that ultimately warm the atmosphere'. These processes must also include those effects which couple the upper and lower atmosphere, as discussed briefly in lines 254 - 259.
The focus is on the outcome of the SESS reporting process within SIOS. As SIOS has only carried out 4 years of reporting by the time this first synthesis of the outcomes, there is a limited range of big science questions addressed. However, we do present and discuss the development of SIOS with a focus on observational capacity and opportunities on the ongoing physical changes that the location offers in terms of both ongoing climatic and derived environmental changes (ranging across all parts of the Earth System), as they have been presented in the first 40 SESS report chapters. We clearly argue why Svalbard is an important location for observing and thus studying both the actual climatic changes and their consequences on the environment, based on an introduction that argues why Svalbard is the Arctic hotspot for the ongoing climatic changes. The emphasize this, the majority of the introduction is devoted to presenting in more detail the ongoing climatic changes as they are studied so far for the Svalbard region.
It is not the idea to provide any overview of the extensive set of observations that is being collected in Svalbard in this paper. Instead, the general objective that has been pursued and that this work reports on is to develop a methodology to summarize the aspirations and interests of the scientific community operating in Svalbard which are found in the SESS reports. Thus, providing useful information to ensure that the action to promote the various scientific priorities and themes can consider the reality found in the field, providing the basis for more effective and cost-effective planning and development of both infrastructure and research projects. Therefore, the very detailed discussion of e.g. the lower atmospheric topics and their links to other environments are not included more than what is done in the original SESS report chapters.
Technical comments:
Figure 2 will be changed into different colours representing the different environments.The two last references (Wilkinson et al., 2016) and (Zhang et al., 2016) have fallen out of the uploaded technically revised manuscript, and will be added during revision of the manuscript. The Moreno-Ibáñez M.,et al. 2021 reference is in the reference list, but an open line has fallen out of the reference list, so that this reference has become part of the previous reference (Meredith et al., 2019). The line between the two references will be added in the revised text. The Cnossen (2020) reference is in the text in line 220.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2023-18-AC1
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Ilkka Matero, 02 Jan 2024
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RC2: 'Comment on esd-2023-18', Anonymous Referee #2, 07 Dec 2023
The article “Developing the Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System - SIOS by Christiansen et al., is a brief overview of a new organizing system for coordinating science and infrastructure on the Island of Svalbard. There are the State of Environmental Science in Svalbard (SESS) Annual reports that have been produced for the last 4 years and the Science Optimization Advisory Group (SOAG) that synthesizes information from the reports and makes recommendations for future development and planning. The primary recommendations based on ‘current gaps in knowledge and infrastructure’ are summarized in Table 1 for atmosphere, cryosphere, marine and terrestrial disciplines. Some important overarching goals that have been identified are (1) taking an interdisciplinary system science approach (2) developing a priority on responses to extreme events and (3) developing improved access to data.
The following are some items that the authors might consider, especially in light of the fact that although the SIOS concept officially launched in 2018, the science, data collection and infrastructure development activities on Svalbard have been in existence for many decades.
- The introduction presents an overly brief summary of the existing science that has resulted from Svalbard research with an unbalanced emphasis on atmospheric research.
- Several references are made to warming on Svalbard being the most extreme “in the Arctic and in the World”. Is this true? It seems as an Island environment with stabilizing maritime influence that this is unlikely. There is research available showing pan-Arctic seasonal warming trends - do these support this statement?
- There is no mention of the history of Svalbard science coordination which has always been a tremendous challenge due to the large number of international participants. What does SIOS hope to achieve that (for instance) the Ny-Alesund Science Managers Committee (NySMAC) established in 1994 (16 years before the beginning of the SIOS preparatory phase) has not achieved? Does the NySMAC still exist or is SIOS a replacement? How do you the identified SIOS knowledge and infrastructure gaps map onto previous gaps identified over the last several decades.
- The articles references 29 research institutes from 10 different countries. It would be useful for these to be listed explicitly in an appendix.
- The article references a data catalog, but no links are provided. https://sios-svalbard.org/sios-ri-catalogue. Will the catalog only reference data collected since 2018 or will longer data sets (such as the temperature records displayed in Figure 1) be available? (This reviewer did not take time to investigate). This seems important to provide historical environmental context, especially for current extreme events.
- Why is a link to sios-svalbard.org not provided to direct the reader to more detailed and updated information?
The aspirations of SIOS are extremely challenging and the Svalbard is of all the Arctic research locations the place where coordination is most difficult compared to other Arctic supersites which are largely supported by the country in which the supersites and networks reside. One issue that the article does not address if any mechanisms have been developed or will be developed to provide coordinated funding to support the coordinated science and/or infrastructure development. For instance, a fruitful avenue for coordinated science is internationally coordinated support for campaigns/field experiments which often result in long-term infrastructure improvements.
Some minor comments:
- In Figure 2: There are map insets for the 3 main science hubs (Longyearbyen, Hornsund and Ny-Alesund) but it is not identified which is which. The reader unfamiliar with Svalbard geography needs these to be labeled explicitly.
- It is surprising that in discussing ‘interdisciplinary science’ that there is no emphasis on surface energy balances. It is these balances that are the connecting mechanism between the atmosphere-cryosphere-marine-terrestrial systems. These are only mentioned in a cursory matter in line 232.
- In line 153 there is mention of a ‘push to increase the number of parameters observing by AWS’. I think that AWS systems generally have a very standard set of meteorological parameters that are measured …. Perhaps the authors mean here that more ancillary measurements should be made in the vicinity of AWS systems? Or possibly that the density of AWS systems should be increased?
Overarching recommendation:
Increase the amount of historical and science background information on the data rich Svalbard location.
Table 1 is the most significant element in the article. Provide some more details for each of the 12 synthesized recommendations summarized in Table 1 with a paragraph or two for each recommendation in the body of the text. This will greatly enhance the significance of the article.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2023-18-RC2 -
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Ilkka Matero, 02 Jan 2024
Our manuscript does not aim for giving an overview of a new system for coordinating science and infrastructure in Svalbard. We rather synthesize the work with developing the Svalbard Integrated Earth Observing System.
- We are not providing a review of the existing science as a background. This is because our aim is to present a synthesis of the development of the Svalbard Integrated Earth Observing System in its first years of full operation. And therefore, we focus solely in the introduction on presenting the changes going on in the climate system largely controlling the Earth System, but also review the overall effects on the environment in the remaining part of the Earth System.
- The introduction is presenting in detail the most recent research documenting that the warming in the Svalbard area/region of the Arctic is the largest going on now.
- We do not think that it is necessary to mention the history of Svalbard science coordination, but state that prior to SIOS collaboration of the magnitude of SIOS did not exist, which is a fact. NySMAC is a collaboration forum for exchange of information about research in a specific location Ny-Ålesund in Svalbard. It is not a joint long-term project with funding to build and share infrastructure and data like SIOS. NySMAC still exists, but cannot and will never replace SIOS. Due to the operational nature of NySMAC, it has never produced any gap analysis like what we present for SIOS.
- We are happy to add a link in an appendix to the SIOS webpage, in which the 29 research institutes are listed.
- The SIOS data catalogue that we refer to is found at https://sios-svalbard.org/metsis/search and contains numerous datasets covering a period beyond 2018. The longest datasets available on the data catalogue date back to 01/01/1945. The mentioned catalogue at https://sios-svalbard.org/sios-ri-catalogue serves a different purpose, and provides an overview of the observation facilities that collect SIOS data and also includes facilities that have ceased operation as well as planned upcoming observation facilities.
- We are happy to add the link to the SIOS webpage as part of this manuscript in the revision, either directly in the text or in an appendix.
Our manuscript does mention that SIOS build on a unique and strong international collaboration, and this would not be possible if SIOS did not receive significant national and institutional funding from the 10 different countries that the 29 members come from. SIOS itself offering coordinated funding which goes across members, thus developing coordination between the members on infrastructure development.
Minor comments:
- The three inset maps in Figure 2 will be labelled with their overall location names of Longyearbyen, Hornsund and Ny-Ålesund in the revised manuscript.
- There is a strong focus on the overall atmospheric influence on the rest of the environments, and in an overview manuscript like this one, we did not find it relevant to add more details on the surface energy balance. It is, however, addressed indirectly in several places as there is a focus on snow, precipitation and black carbon.
- The push to increase the number of parameters being observed by AWS is mentioned especially for eastern and northern Svalbard, where only basic AWS infrastructure existed at the time of the SESS reporting. This implies that new technological developments are required with respect to sensors as well as green power supply systems. And so, we agree that it would be best if all AWS were measuring the exact same parameters, but given the present logistics of the observation infrastructure (access to power supply and power types and thus consistency of power access) it is not possible to measure as many and especially power demanding parameters in remote location in particularly eastern and northern Svalbard. It would of course be very nice if the number of AWS and thus the density of this type of basic infrastructure could be increased. This can however be challenging due to both logistics and the required permissions to establish infrastructure in the many protected areas in Svalbard.
We are not planning to increase the historical and science background information as this is not the scope of this manuscript.
We agree that the content of Table 1 is a very important part of the manuscript. The content of Table 1 forms the basis of the text in the sections 3.1 with its four environment specific subsections. So, we do therefore not think that it is necessary, nor relevant, to add more sentences to the overall themes listed in Table 1. Adding more text to this table might easily prevent the overview intended with this table presentation.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2023-18-AC2
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