About GEM

Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring (GEM) is a long-term programme run by universities and research institutions in Denmark and Greenland. Over the past three decades, GEM has become a leading international barometer for climate change, measuring its impacts and ecosystem changes in the Arctic.Over the years the programme has developed from a comprehensive climate change and ecosystem monitoring program at a single site in the National Park of North-East Greenland to also include two almost equally comprehensive programs in West Greenland supplemented with strategic initiatives to study cross-cutting issues and use remote sensing and modelling efforts to integrate the information from the data gathered across the program.

The mission of GEM is threefold and embraces the following actions:

1.    To contribute to a coherent and science-based description of the state of the environment, including its biodiversity, in Greenland and the Arctic in relation to climatic changes with focus on ecosystem responses and on global impacts related to feedback processes.

2.    To provide science-based input on the state of the environment in Greenland and the Arctic for danish, greenlandic and international policy development, adaptation and administration.

3.    To provide a platform for cutting-edge inter-disciplinary research on the structure and function of arctic ecosystems.