Pan-Eurasian Experiment
The collaboration between the Arctic Futures Initiative (AFI) and the international research program Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX) is based on mutual understanding and complementary work for a holistic systems approach required for increased knowledge of development of the Arctic and surrounding boreal region. PEEX, started in 2012, aims to be a next-generation natural sciences and socio-economic research initiative using excellent multi-disciplinary science with clear impacts on future environmental, socio-economic and demographic development of the Arctic and boreal regions as well as of China.
PEEX is a bottom-up initiative by several European, Russian and Chinese research organizations and institutes with co-operation of US and Canadian organizations and institutes. The promoter institutes of this initiative are the University of Helsinki and the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Finland; the Institute of Geography of Moscow State University, AEROCOSMOS, and the Institute of Atmospheric Optics (Siberian branch) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) in Russia; the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Institute for Climate and Global Change Research (ICGCR) of Nanjing University in China.
PEEX involves European, Russian and Chinese scientists from various disciplines, expermentalists and modelers, and international research projects funded by European, Russian and Chinese funding programs. The first active PEEX period is 2013-2033, though PEEX will continue until 2100. Strong involvement and international collaboration between European, Russian and Chinese partners is needed to answer the climate policy challenge: How will northern societies cope with environmental changes?
The backbone of PEEX lies in establishment and maintenance of long-term, coherent and coordinated research and education activities and continuous, comprehensive research infrastructures in the PEEX domain. PEEX is also a science community building novel infrastructures in the Northern Pan-Eurasian region and in China. Since 2012, PEEX has made preparatory work with the Russian station networks and collected preliminary information on the in situ station measurements over 170 stations. In 2017 PEEX focused on more detailed metadata inventory of the Russian in situ stations. The metadata overview will in the first step in connecting the Russian research infrastructure to international research infrastructure frameworks. In addition to upgrading plans of the exiting stations’ infrastructure, PEEX is actively promoting the establishment of new in situ stations in Russia and China, based on the so called SMEAR (Stations for Measuring Ecosystem-Atmosphere Relations) measurement concept.
As part of the PEEX station network approach we have published the “PEEX View Tool”. In the future, PEEX View Tool enables the comparison between in situ data and modelled data. This tool is envisioned to be part of the PEEX Modelling Platform and combining multidisciplinary datasets of varying temporal and spatial scales. The PEEX modelling platform concept, the descriptions of the model software together with a specific technological platform and data formats, is under preparation.
For further information:
https://www.atm.helsinki.fi/peex/