The Horizon-2020 CRiceS “Climate Relevant interactions and feedbacks: the key role of sea ice and Snow in the polar and global climate system” (1 Sep 2021 – 30 Nov 2025; https://www.crices-h2020.eu) project final Science Meeting took place during 26-28 November 2025 in a hybrid mode in Helsinki, Finland. attended the meeting. In total, more than 60 participants  attended onsite and attended online from almost all Partners/ Institutions/ Teams of the CRiceS consortium (consisting of 20 international research teams, from Europe, Canada, South Africa, and India). The CRiceS project focused on improving model predictions of the role of polar processes in the climate system that consists of the oceans, ice and snow cover, and the atmosphere. Combining knowledge from different disciplines in a coordinated way, the CRiceS scientists improved understanding of environmental change and role of the polar processes, such as feedback loops, in polar and global climate. The CRiceS project enhanced the modelling of the impacts that the Arctic and Antarctic regions have for the global climate.

On the first day, 26^th November, the sessions for early carrier researchers (ECR) and the rest of CRiceS consortium were arranged in parallel. These started with welcome words from the coordinators, and followed by the project reporting on financial, scientific/ technical and communication issues; data and code workshop (highlights, finalizing CRiceS project data in Zenodo,  https://zenodo.org/communities/crices-h2020 and Github, https://github.com/crices-h2020 communities); and discussions on deliverable/ synergy paper related to the landscape of Arctic climate futures and their drivers and impacts.

On the second day, 27^th November, the CRiceS Open Science Day, the morning session included a series of presentations (followed by questions and short discussions) such as the Arctic Sea ice indicators to assess climate change impacts on ecosystems and marine transport; Ice conditions and polar bears; What have we learned about central Arctic aerosol in recent years?; A regionally-targeted climate model predicts near-future changes in extreme environmental conditions over seasonal ranges of a migratory marine predator; Understanding the spread in polar climate feedbacks using coordinated CRiceS experiments; Climate effects from blowing snow in TM5 and EC-Earth3 models; The effects of mixing on sea ice and ocean biogeochemistry; WIce-FOAM 1.0: Coupled dynamic and thermodynamic modelling of heterogeneous sea ice and waves using OpenFOAM-v2306; A Swath-based framework to disentangle the dynamic contributions of sub-daily sea-ice concentration changes; Contribution of young ice formation processes to the simulation of Antarctic sea ice mass budget; Sensitivity analysis of arctic aerosols in the chemistry transport model TM5 during the MOSAiC expedition; 15 years of satellite sea surface salinity for improving and validating the model projections.

In the second part of the day, the high-level policy event on the importance of European scientific leadership in polar climate change took place, moderated by Alister Doyle (journalist and writer), including panel discussions with involving of representatives from the Arctic Affairs, Sami Parliament in Norway, Amnesty International, United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, European Commission, European Polar Board, and the CRiceS coordinators. The event was followed by discussions on the cryosphere governance and policy as well as by feedback from the CRiceS International Advisory Committee.

On the third day, 28^th November, the morning session included introduction to the CRiceS synthesis papers followed by the  three parallel sessions (each in hybrid mode) on the CRiceS Core Themes (CTs): CT1 – Heat, mass and momentum exchanges; CT2 – Aerosols and clouds; and CT3 – Biogeochemical cycles/ greenhouse gas exchange. The writing plans for planned papers were discussed. Finally, the Science Meeting was concluded with wrapping up and closing words.

The CRiceS project:
Objectives and impacts: https://www.crices-h2020.eu/about/objectives-and-impacts
Work packages: https://www.crices-h2020.eu/about/work-packages
Events and news: https://www.crices-h2020.eu/events
List of publications: https://www.crices-h2020.eu/publications

Socializing events included visits of participants to the ice-breaking party in the “Kaisla Bar” on the 1^st day and the project final dinner in the “BisouBisou Rooftop Restaurant & Bar” on the 2^nd day of the CRiceS project final Science Meeting.

Text by: Alexander Mahura, INAR – Univ Helsinki