Joint ICES/PICES/PAME Working Group on Integrated Ecosystem Assessment for the Central Arctic Ocean (WGICA; outputs from 2025 meeting)

This is the Working Group on Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) for the Central Arctic Ocean (WGICA) end-of term report. The report describes the progress made by the working group, focusing on integrated ecosystem assessment of the Central Arctic Ocean (CAO) ecoregion. The main body of work consisted of the compilation of existing knowledge of human activities and their pressures in the Central Arctic Ocean, and the semi-quantitative assessment conducted based on this. Science highlights are the publication of the Cooperative Research Report on the description of human activities, its pressures, and vulnerability of the CAO ecosystem, the groups’ input to the revision of the Ecosystem Overview for the CAO, and the Climate Assessment Report for the CAO. Future work will focus on the identification of vulnerable and fragile species, communities and habitats in the CAO, and their sensitivity towards both climate change and pressures from human activities in the future.