The problem itself is so complex that it is difficult to understand and it is difficult to evaluate governmental and societal actions taken against climate change, and understand the role of personal decisions. Innovative ways to communicate the scientific results are needed to increase the impact of research on the contemporary society.
INAR network promotes the dialogue and interaction between the science community and society in Finland and globally. INAR engagement activities design new ways to communicate the science to society and interact with societal stakeholders. Below examples of our activities:
Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX) is a multidisciplinary climate change, air quality, environment and research infrastructure and program focusing on the Northern Eurasian, particularly arctic and boreal regions. One of the key priorities of PEEX is to increase public awareness of the climate change impacts in Pan Eurasian region and deliver scientific outputs and assessments that benefit also the policy-making. PEEX is a bottom up initiative by several European, Russian and Chinese research organizations and institutes. PEEX headquarter is run by INAR.
Future Earth Finland – National Committee for Global Change Research promotes interdisciplinary global change research, which has an impact on society. The national committee implements the objectives of Future Earth, the new global change research program coordinated by the International Council for Science, ICSU. Future Earth Finland shares knowledge for sustainable development. The initiative studies the global change from an integrated perspective and aims for greater societal impact by involving the various stakeholders related to sustainable development in the design and dissemination of research. The Future Earth Finland and FE European Alliance secretariats are in INAR.
Beautiful Beijing and Silk road are projects that promote export of atmospheric knowledge, knowhow and research infrastructure to China in order to improve air quality observations and early warning systems in China
Climate Whirl is a multidisciplinary and -artistic project that aims to increase public knowledge about the interactions between the climate and forests, and the effect of boreal forests to climate change. It includes artist residency, workshops between artists and scientists and art pieces and events at the SMEAR II station.
Books for general public have been published in Finnish to present the research done in INAR. The book ‘Yhdessä ilmakehässä’ by Mai Allo (published by Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura) and ’Otsonipäiväkirjat’ by Tero Mielonen and Pentti Otsamo (published by Ursa). The books can be ordered from the given links.
Carbon tree is an interactive web page installation. It presents both artistic animation and traditional graphs to visualize the real time uptake and release of carbon in a Scots pine tree at SMEAR II. Besides the on-line data, the web pages include interactivity: a user can change the state of the environmental factors and see the effect on the rate of CO2 exchange. We also have an interactive carbon tree installation for exhibitions.
Real-time data on aerosol particles measured from SMEAR II can be followed in augmented reality in Josefina Nelimarkka’s newest piece of art on your phone. A Kairos2 application is available for Android and iOS.