The EU project GLIMPSE addressed the deficiences in our understanding of the Arctic by developing improved physical descriptions, understanding and parameterizations of regional Arctic climate feedbacks in atmospheric regional climate models and coupled atmosphere-ocean-sea-ice regional climate models with high horizontal and vertical resolution on the basis of data from the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) project and of the network of meteorological stations over land.

The improved parameterizations from regional models of the Arctic, obtained in the Arctic Regional Climate Model Intercomparison Project (ARCMIP) has been implemented into state-of -the-art coupled Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models (AOGCM), to determine and understand their global influences and consequences for Arctic climate feedbacks and decadal-scale climate variations. These results will be used to assess the probability of abrupt climate changes on decadal time scales in the past and in the future. Arctic climate changes should exert also strong impacts on northern ecosystems and communities.

In order to effectively address the highly complex Arctic climate and environmental science questions of the 21^st century, scientists, resource managers, decision makers, and interested citizens will need access to more detailed information of the Arctic and its role within the global climate system, which will be the main topic of the workshop.

The workshop is being convened to bring together scientists, resource managers and decision makers to evaluate and discuss the role of the Arctic in the global climate system, to deliver information for endusers and to contribute significantly for the design of model experiments and observations within the International Polar Year.

The three day workshop will focus on the evaluation and presentation of the results within GLIMPSE and deliver results for endusers and decision makers. The progress and next steps within the ARCMIP and the Arctic Ocean Model Intercomparison Projects (AOMIP) and the role of the combined use of RCMs and AOGCMs will be discussed.

For further information, visit http://www.awi-potsdam.de/www-pot/atmo/glimpse.

For the organising committee
Klaus Dethloff, Annette Rinke