7th Study Conference on BALTEX on Öland honoured by H. M. King Carl XVI Gustaf, King of Sweden

We are very pleased to announce that H. M. King Carl XVI Gustaf, King of Sweden, will honour the 7th Study Conference on BALTEX with his presence during the Conference Opening on Monday 10 June 2013.

The Registration Deadline for the Conference which will take place in Borgholm, Island of Öland, Sweden on 10-14 June 2013, has been extended to 7 May 2013.

Please find the programme and all information concerning the Conference here:
www.baltex-research.eu/oland2013/

We hope to see you on Öland!

7th Study Conference on BALTEX - Programme available now

The programme for the 7th and final BALTEX Conference on the Swedish Baltic Sea island of Öland is now available online at  

http://www.baltex-research.eu/oland2013/material/BALTEX2013_Conf_Prog_Draft_24Apr.pdf

Be sure to check the conference website regularly for news and updates!  

www.baltex-research.eu/oland2013

Ocean Science Meeting in February 2014 - BALTEX session submitted

AGU/ASLO and TOS inform that

The biennial Ocean Sciences Meeting, co-sponsored by AGU, ASLO, and TOS will be held at the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu on February 23-28, 2014. Increasing evidence of multiple human impacts on the oceans makes this is a critical time for the largest international assembly of ocean scientists, engineers, students, educators, policy makers, and other stake holders to gather and share their results on research, application of research, and education.

As the call for proposals of sessions reached us (Hans von Storch and Anders Omstedt) just hours before deadline, we submitted a proposal "The future of the Baltic Sea" without further disucssion within the BALTEX group. The proposal goes with this announcement

The Baltic Sea is an marginal sea under many pressures, originating from global climate change, import of alien species, eutrophication and the release of pollutants, dumped ammunition, overfishing and various engineering modifications, including dynamic development in coastal societies, hydro and nuclear power plants, massive wind farming and various bridge and tunnel crossings in the sounds to the open ocean. At the same time, the Baltic Sea is used for very many different purposes, from previous military use, to intense agriculture, tourism and natural preservation. The Baltic Sea has went through massive political development during last decades and new trust between the different countries have been possible to develop demonstrated by 20 years research within the BALTEX program, the HELCOM intergovermental work and the joint financing research program BONUS.
We want to discuss recent developments and design future scenarios. Strategies for gaining scientific underpinning of political decision processes, such as the BACC assessment of knowledge about climate, climate impact and climate change, and HELCOM action plans will be reviewed.

We now hope that the proposal will be accepted (which is uncertain), and that many of us will see each other in February next year in Honolulu.

7th Study Conference on BALTEX

EXTENDED ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 11 March
Conference website and Call for Papers click here...

Just a reminder:

7^th Study Conference on BALTEX

Changes in Energy, Water and Matter Cycles - 20 Years of BALTEX Research
Building Regional Earth System Knowledge - A future programme for the Baltic Sea region

Borgholm, Öland, Sweden
10-14 June 2013

Obviously a conference, were all friends of scientific analysis of the Baltic Sea regional environment should show up. However, the deadline for submission of abstracts is tomorrow!Submission is easy, just go to http://www.baltex-research.eu/oland2013/programme.html

BALTEX is ending - An new programme is starting

At the 7th Study Conference on BALTEX, to be held on the beautiful Swedish island of Öland, 10-14 June (the week before mid-summer!), BALTEX (the mother of BACC) will be officially terminated after 20 years and two successful research phases. At that conference, the new programme will be presented and also given a name and a new logo. For a first glimpse and taste of the new programme, read the new BALTEX Newsletter. It may be interesting for BACCers to see that the assessment idea sensu BACC is intended to be taken up in the new programme.

A call for papers for the Öland Conference is still open until 28 February.

HELCOM Workshop discusses recent findings and options to cope with climate change

A HELCOM Workshop on Climate Change was organized on 5 and 6 February 2013 in Warnemünde, Germany, in conjunction with BALTEX. The most recent climate change findings were presented by BACC II authors and other experts. Scientists and stakeholders were present to discuss these results and possible options to cope with climate change and its impacts on the Baltic Sea ecosystem.

A podium discussion with scientists and stakeholders and expert breakout discussion rounds elaborated a number of proposals. Presentations given at the workshop can be downloaded from the HELCOM website here... The conclusion document together with the agenda and a list of participants can be directly downloaded here....

BACC II Conference podium discussion summarized

The podium discussion on the second day of the Tallinn conference was moderated by Grit Martinez of Ecologic. Read here her short summary of the event.

BACC II Conference Summary updated, photos and participant list

An updated summary of the BACC II conference in Tallinn is available here. Please read and comment.
Also, a list of conference participants and a selection of conference photos is now available on the BACC II website here.

BACC II results presented and discussed in Tallinn

About 110 participants were at the BACC II Conference in Tallinn, Estonia, on 6 and 7 September. The scope of this short conference was to provide the scientific and stakeholder communities with summaries of the draft chapters for the BACC II book, which is expected to be published in late 2013.

The organizing team would like to thank the presenters for summarizing the chapters in such a good and comprehensive way. Thanks also to everybody who contributed to the vivid discussions and contributed with valuable comments to the chapter contents. They shall be taken up by authors to improve the chapters.

To give a short synopsis of the first day, it seems that BACC I results are confirmed and substantiated by the new information. Additional material allows to go into more detail in some issues, and some contested issues can be reconciled (e.g. sea surface temperature trends). For regional climate models (RCMs) it was evident that the ability to run multi-model ensembles seems a major addition, but clearly RCMs need further development. Homogeneity of data is till a problem and not taken seriously enough in some scientific quarters.

The question of attribution of the regional climate change signal to different drivers is a major new aspect of the BACC II book. Current knowledge reveals that attribution on the regional scale is still weak. The issue of multiple drivers on ecosystem and socio-economy changes is recognized, but more research efforts are clearly needed. Climate change is seen as a serious issue, but in many cases it remains questionable if it is a dominant issue.

On the second day, BACC chairman Hans von Storch summarized the presentations of the first day. The presentation can be downloaded here, and we would like to invite you to comment and discuss to here on this blog. A comprehensive summary can be viewed here. Maria Laamanen of the HELCOM Secretariat gave an overview over the work of HELCOM and the Baltic Sea Action Plan. HELCOM will use part of the BACC II material for a HELCOM Thematic Assessment in 2013. This collaboration between the scientific initiative of BACC and the scientific-political stakeholder HELCOM had been successful already for BACC I (2007-2008), from which also a HELCOM Thematic Assessment was published.

Last but not least, we would like to thank the moderator and discussion panelists (see programme) on the second day. The panel discussion demonstrated that there is still room for improving the interface between the science on the one hand, and decision makers, other stakeholders and the public on the other hand. The establishment of regional climate services could be a way to do this, a place where professionals from both sides work closely together to identify specific information needs, so that the best available scientific information can effectively be used. The role of the scientists themselves in propagating climate change messages was discussed controversely. While some panel speakers argued in favour of a stronger role of scientists in propagating climate change issues in public, this was clearly rejected by BACC Chairman Hans von Storch. He is convinced that it is crucial to keep a clear division between the science on the one hand, which is solely responsible for the scientific truth (with no compromises towards propagating a “good cause”), and other groups (like HELCOM, NGO´s etc), which have a different task in soceity, e.g. working towards an improved awareness for climate change issues in society. “Good” and “bad” are no categories in science. Society must decide whether e.g. a higer temperature and more rain is “good” or “bad”, this is not a scientific task.

Read and discuss the comprehensive summary of BACC II results and the summary presentation!

For more information BACC II, see www.baltex-research.eu/BACC2