technology needed to establish an Arctic environmental data 

 system. Representatives from a broad range of U.S. and Canadian 

 Government agencies, including the Marine Mammal Commission, 

 and from several universities participated in the Workshop. 



The Workshop report, published and distributed by the 

 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, notes that a 

 successful Arctic data system would have to be coordinated 

 with and contribute to several ongoing efforts to establish 

 data management systems for national and international programs 

 related to global environmental change and to support the 

 study of Arctic ecosystems. 6 The data entered into this 

 system should be accessible and useful to Arctic scientists, 

 residents, and resource managers. Consequently, the report 

 recommends that the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee 

 initiate efforts to: develop an Arctic environmental data 

 directory; create a multi-organizational working group to 

 help establish a data management system; determine what tech- 

 nology should be used to ensure that data would not be lost 

 or altered if the technology changes; and define the categories 

 of data needed to understand global and Arctic environmental 

 changes. 



At its meeting on 2 May, in which Commission repre- 

 sentatives participated, the Interagency Committee endorsed 

 the Workshop recommendations. The Committee noted that the 

 next step should be to create a multi-organizational working 

 group to develop an Arctic environmental data directory and 

 that this task should be done in consultation with the ad hoc 

 Interagency Working Group on Data Management for Global Change, 

 formed in June 1987 by the Committee on Earth Science of the 

 President's Office of Science and Technology Policy. This ad 

 hoc Working Group is tasked with creating a national data 

 system for global change research by 1995 that is consistent 

 across agencies and involves and provides support to univer- 

 sities and other user communities. Linking an Arctic directory 

 with global change data is important because some Arctic 

 processes affect global climate and some global climate pro- 

 cesses affect the Arctic. The Arctic environmental data 

 directory would be a useful prototype for the global change 

 directory, a good source of historical information about 

 Arctic conditions, and an appropriate repository for monitoring 

 data. 



In June 1988, the Arctic Environmental Data Directory 

 Working Group was constituted with representatives from Federal 

 agencies holding Arctic environmental data (the U.S. Geological 



6 Copies of the Report of the Arctic Environmental Data 

 Workshop are available from the National Technical Information 

 Service, 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, Virginia 22161. 



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