The Arctic and surrounding region of sub-arctic is one key area for the study of global change because the anthropogenic impact is projected to be the largest in this area due to the complicated feedback processes of the nature. This Arctic Region is undergoing strong changes in the recent years during the global warming. A number of international and interdisciplinary research projects are in progress for the studies on the atmosphere-ocean-land system of Arctic, one of such is the world-wide project of the International Polar Year (IPY) during 2007 to 2009. In order to understand the feedback processes, in which various components are interacting in the Arctic and Sub-arctic, and to project the global warming in the future, we need to exchange more knowledge and information than ever by combining the different scientific communities under the common interest of the Arctic region. We predict that the science in the Arctic region draws increasingly more attention in near future, and the proposed symposium would serve as the first step for that goal.

Several research groups located in Japan discussed the necessity of such integrated Symposium, and a new "International Symposium on the Arctic Research" will be initiated under the auspices of the IASC and CliC Subcommittee of the Science Council of Japan, with support of several Institutes and Agencies. This Symposium is planned to be held every 2-years, and the first Symposium will be held in November, 2008 in Tokyo, Japan.