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Observations indicate that over the past several decades, geomorphic processes in the Arctic have been changing or intensifying. Coastal erosion, which currently supplies most of the sediment and carbon to the Arctic Ocean [Rachold et al., 2000], may have doubled since 1955 [Mars and Houseknecht, 2007]. Further inland, expansion of channel networks [Toniolo et al., 2009] and increased river bank erosion [Costard et al., 2007] have been attributed to warming. Lakes, ponds, and wetlands appear to be more dynamic, growing in some areas, shrinking in others, and changing distribution across lowland regions [e.g., Smith et al., 2005]. On the Arctic coastal plain, recent degradation of frozen ground previously stable for thousands of years suggests 10–30% of lowland and tundra landscapes may be affected by even modest warming [Jorgenson et al., 2006]. In headwater regions, hillslope soil erosion and landslides are increasing [e.g., Gooseff et al., 2009].

Tenth International Conference on Permafrost; Salekhard, Russia, 25–29 June 2012 To recognize permafrost's growing significance in the Earth climate system, to stimulate interaction among the scientific communities, and to share results of the increasing numbers of permafrost investigations and discoveries currently taking place, the Tenth International Conference on Permafrost (TICOP) was held in late June in Salekhard, a town in the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district of Russia that is situated precisely on the Arctic Circle and underlain by discontinuous permafrost. TICOP marked the tenth iteration of the long-running conference series, which started in 1963, and is the conference's first return to Russia since the Second International Conference on Permafrost in 1973.

Climate Change Experiments in High-Latitude Ecosystems; Fairbanks, Alaska, 13-14 October 2010; A 2-day climate change workshop was held at the International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks. The workshop, sponsored by Biological and Environmental Research, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), was attended by 45 subject matter experts from universities, DOE national laboratories, and other federal and nongovernmental organizations. The workshop sought to engage the Arctic science community in planning for a proposed Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments (NGEE-Arctic) project in Alaska (http:// ngee.ornl.gov/). The goal of this activity is to provide data, theory, and models to improve representations of high-latitude terrestrial processes in Earth system models. In particular, there is a need to better understand the processes by which warming may drive increased plant productivity and atmospheric carbon uptake and storage in biomass and soils, as well as those processes that may drive an increase in the release of methane (CH{sub 4}) and carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) through microbial decomposition of soil carbon stored in thawing permafrost. This understanding is required to quantify the important feedback mechanisms that define the role of terrestrial processes in regional and global climate.

Dramatic changes in the Arctic have captured the attention of the public. Understanding changes such as the decline of sea ice, the fate of polar bears and other marine mammals, melting of the Greenland ice sheet, changes in the terrestrial carbon budget, and impacts on and feedbacks from the human community require a new approach to research involving synthesis of linkages between system components and threshold behaviors. Addressing these challenges requires substantial improvement in methods to integrate complex and disparate data from observations and models, including traditional knowledge. Data are collected for a variety of purposes, are poorly harmonized over space and time, and bear varying degrees of access. Synthesizing this information requires innovative data discovery, standardization, interdisciplinary data integration, distribution, and advanced data assimilation to support the development of Arctic system models.