The High Arctic Research Center Concept: Year-Round, Multi-Domain Access for Research, Development and Domain Awareness in the North American Arctic

Rapidly accelerating change in the Arctic brings a complex mix of impact, opportunity and challenge. Year-round, multi-domain access for science is required to provide the observations, measurements and analysis required to build effective predictive, decision-informing models. Year-round, multi-domain access for emergency response and national security is required to develop and test Arctic hardened technologies, enable robust domain awareness and facilitate Arctic operational experience. The proposed High Arctic Research Center (HARC) has the potential to provide year-round, cost-effective access to atmosphere, ocean and coastal environments for both scientific and national security research, development and technology testing. Coordination and collaboration across North American Arctic research and development infrastructure has significant potential scientific and security leveraging value. The HARC has a potentially important role as a cooperative Arctic research infrastructure hub within this North American Arctic research and development collaborative. This cooperative infrastructure network also has the potential to play a contributing role to informing policy dialogues and planning for the North American Arctic. The following paper explores each of  these topics in more detail.