Co-Convenors: Sinjae Yoo (SB), Atsushi Tsuda (BIO), Elizabeth Logerwell (FIS), Chuanlin Huo (MEQ), Hiroya Sugisaki (MONITOR), Kyung-Il Chang (POC), Toru Suzuki (TCODE), Thomas Therriault (AICE), Hiroaki Saito (COVE), Phillip Mundy (SOFE) and Igor Shevchenko (Russia)

Invited Speakers:
Richard Beamish (Fisheries and Oceans Canada, retired)
Alida Bundy (Bedford Institute of Oceanography, DFO, Canada)
Brian Helmuth (Northeastern University, USA)
Mitsutaku Makino (Fisheries Research Agency, Japan)
Muyin Wang (University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA)

One goal of the PICES FUTURE program is to improve our capability to convey in a clear and effective manner how North Pacific marine environments may change due to natural and anthropogenic stressors, including climate change, and ultimately how societies will be affected by these changes. This new goal requires advancement in scientific communication which has largely been uncharted territory for PICES. To facilitate advancement in this new area, the Symposium will focus on four major issues pertaining to scientific communication: Products, Communicating Uncertainty, Decision Support Tools, and Human Dimensions. Products will include integration of outputs from field observations and models to provide comprehensive overviews of ecosystem status, trends and change for different audiences that include international experts, resource managers and the general public. Communicating Uncertainty will include the qualification or quantification of uncertainty associated with status, outlooks and forecasts of ecosystem changes. Decision Support Tools will include processing scientific outputs for management advice in an open and transparent way that will allow scientists to provide results that quantify the benefits and risks associated with different management strategies. Lastly, Human Dimensions will include the integration of social sciences in decision-making with respect to marine policy or management to capture the economic, cultural or societal values associated with sustainable ecosystems - this integration is the first step to communicating the social significance of predicted impacts from climate or ecosystem changes. In addition to these four focal issues, the Symposium will also discuss the scientific basis of FUTURE products such as the regional nature of marine ecosystem change, the causes of change, the challenges of attribution, and the future of change.