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ACADIS is the continuation and expansion of CADIS, or Advanced CADIS. The Advanced Cooperative Arctic Data and Information Service (ACADIS) is a joint effort between the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and Unidata to manage the diverse data needs of the Arctic research community supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Polar Programs (OPP). This includes, but is not limited to, projects funded under the Arctic Ob...
The population biology of polar bears occupying land in summer months is comparatively well known. Much less is known about the larger fraction of polar bear populations which stays on the ice through the summer. A better understanding of the physiology of fasting in both summer habitats is needed to understand how reduced sea ice cover in the Arctic will impact polar bear populations. Bears that stay ashore in summer have almost no access to food and tend to be inactive. Those that stay on the ...
This collaborative project is composed of the following: 0634226 (Morison, UW, LEAD), 0634122 (Collier, Oregon State), 0634097 (McPhee, McPhee Research Company), 0633979 (Proshutinsky, Woods Hole) and 0634167 (Guay, Pacific Marine Sciences and Technology). The investigators propose to take annual springtime, large-scale airborne surveys of the Arctic Ocean. These surveys will be in two regions: the central Arctic Ocean (annual surveys), and the southern Beaufort Sea (biannual surveys). They will...
This collaboration consists of 0633878 (Schlosser, Columbia University, LEAD), 0633885 (Steele, University of Washington) and 0633343 (Kwok, NASA). In this continuation of the Switchyard project (Steele/Schlosser/Kwok, 0230427), researchers will establish a long-term Arctic Ocean observing system component in the switchyard region of the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland and Ellesmere Island, Canada. The project will continue and expand two aircraft-based hydrographic surveys between Alert and the...
This project covers the ancillary data sets available to support CADIS.
This coordinated international effort plans to quantify the variability of fluxes connecting the Arctic and subpolar oceans, understand the role played by the Arctic and sub-Arctic in steering decadal scale climate variability and establish a pan-Arctic integrated observing network. Researcher's investigation will focus on understanding exchanges across a major gateway linking the Arctic with the subpolar North Atlantic Davis Strait (Canadian Arctic Archipelago). Fluxes through Davis Strait repr...
The Arctic Ocean ecosystem may respond dramatically to climate change through already observed modification of the physical environment (e.g., hydrography and ice cover). A better understanding of the coupled biological-physical ocean ecosystem, and its interannual variability, is necessary to predict and understand these potential impacts of climate change on the Arctic ecosystem. The Chukchi-Beaufort Sea region near Barrow, AK, including coastal waters, has been identified as key because it li...
Given the significant role of Pacific waters in the Arctic, quantifying the Bering Strait throughflow and its properties is important to understanding the present functioning of the Arctic system, as well as the causes and prediction of present and future Arctic change. This makes a Bering Strait monitoring system a vital component of the Arctic Observing Network (AON). Thus, this proposal is for an international project to: 1) measure the velocities and water properties of the Bering Strait thr...
The grant, a collaboration between 0632131 (Sturm, CRREL, LEAD), 0632160 (Kane, UAF) and 0632133 (Liston, CSU). The chief goal is working to develop better instruments and ways of measuring snow in the Arctic, and analyzing the resultant data. At sites at Barrow, Imnavait Creek, and Fox, Alaska, and in Inuvik, Canada the team has installed meteorological and snow measuring instrumentation including solid-state snow pillows, heated plate precipitation sensors, snow fences (to capture the wind-bl...
The National Science Foundations (NSF) Arctic System Science (ARCSS) Program is a multidisciplinary approach to understanding polar processes for climate and global change. ARCSS is the only element of the U.S. Global Change Research Program specifically concerned with the arctic region. By focusing on understanding Arctic processes in great detail, investigators are better able to characterize global changes through the improvement of global-scale models and other research tools. The primary AR...
The river linkage between the land and the Arctic Ocean plays a central role in the rapidly evolving dynamics of the Arctic System. Six great rivers provide the majority of the continental fresh water to the Arctic Ocean, the most landlocked and freshwater-dominated of the Earth's seas. By measuring the flux of water and constituents at the junction between the continents and the ocean in these key rivers, it is possible to efficiently assess changes occurring across vast regions of the continen...
This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This award supports the purchase of a new laser to replace the current laser in the lidar at Eureka, Nunavut, Canada. The installation of the new laser will improve instrument reliability and data quality of an observing system that has been operating as part of the Arctic Observing Network since July 2005. The "Intellectual Merit" of this project is that the Eureka lidar data are providing much ne...
This award supports the deployment of ice mass balance (IMB) buoys as part of the Arctic Observing Network (AON) and the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH). The autonomous, ice-based drifting buoys measure, delineate and, importantly, attribute thermodynamically-driven changes in the thickness of the ice cover. The IMBs will be deployed strategically and in coordination with other elements of AON to optimize the observation of changes and trends in sea ice throughout the Arctic Basin....
This award will support the continued implementation of the Bering Sea Sub-Network (BSSN), a regional initiative of community-based organizations in Western Alaska and Northeast Russia. The "Intellectual Merit" of BSSN lies in its operation as a distributed network which employs people as individual, coordinated sensors for local environmental observations of socio-ecological change. BSSN will address the following questions: (1) how have economically significant species changed over the past ce...
Indigenous peoples around the economically important Bering Sea region are launching a project that will monitor environmental changes in the region. The project will involve Native organizations in western Alaska and in the Russian northeast. The Bering Sea, one of the most productive seas in the world, which includes globally important habitats for many biological resources, is now undergoing far-reaching environmental changes including climate change that alarm scientists, coastal residents a...
The position of the arctic treeline has important implications for surface energy budgets and carbon cycling in a changing climate. Modeling efforts suggest these effects are relevant on regional and global scales. Our understanding of the controls on tree growth at the arctic treeline has been developed using tree ring studies, which are necessarily correlative and not mechanistic in nature. These tree ring studies have identified both positive and negative radial growth responses to warming in...
This grant is a collaboration with 0632264 (Bret-Harte, UAF). The research will (1) establish observatories at two existing sites of research on landscape-level carbon, water, and energy balance at Toolik Lake (Alaska) and Cherskiy (Siberia) and (2) forms a network of observatories across the Arctic where similar long-term observations of carbon, water and energy variables are made or proposed as part of IPY. These collaborating sites are Toolik, Cherskiy, Abisko (Sweden, the main site of the AB...
CDOM has been identified as a major factor in the absorption of solar energy into Arctic surface waters, controlling the vertical partitioning of solar energy and directly impacting the degree of solar heating, ice melt and thermal stratification. The source of this material on Western Arctic shelf seas is ambiguous. A positive correlation between CDOM absorption and salinity argues against a terrestrial source. High concentrations observed within sea ice cores point towards this medium as a pot...
This award will support the continuation of the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring (CALM) program as an integral part of the Arctic Observing Network (AON) and the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH). The active-layer network of 168 sites represents the only coordinated and standardized program of observations using standard measurement protocols designed to observe and detect decadal changes in the dynamics of seasonal thawing and freezing in high-latitude soils. The Intellectual Mer...
The work of this research grant involves the integration and analysis of measurements from the surface-based sites at SHEBA (Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic), Barrow, and the new observatory in Eureka, Canada, as well as satellite data over the northern polar region. In effect, this project will coordinate existing, yet disparate, Arctic cloud measurements into a coherent network of observations that are useful for understanding the broader roles of clouds in Arctic climate and for evaluating ...
Funds are provided to deploy a single, strategically placed mooring in the core of the western Arctic boundary current east of Barrow Canyon, which will collect measurements permitting estimation of both the alongstream and cross-stream fluxes of important physical, chemical, and biological quantities. These measurements will enhance our understanding of the western Arctic ocean-atmosphere-ice system, including crucial aspects of the ecosystem that are unattainable throughout most of the year du...
This project will quantify the relationship between the ice-free area of the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas, and evaporation and precipitation in the Arctic region. The methodology uses isotopic compositions of storm-by-storm precipitation samples, pan-Arctic meteorological data, and numerical modeling. Precipitation samples will be collected at nine Arctic observatories, and by three high schools in Greenland. Samples will be analyzed for D/H and 18O/16O ratios. The track of a given storm wi...
Investigators from the University of Alabama Tuscaloosa and Florida International University have received funding to investigate physiological processes of arctic tundra vegetation during the winter. The study will increase our understanding of physiological processes of arctic tundra vegetation under snow during the cold season and increase our knowledge of how these processes contribute to the carbon cycling and climate change. The project will investigate cold season plant physiology, carbon...
Funds are provided to support a study of the spatial and temporal variability in basal stress regime of Breiðamerkurjökull, a glacier with deformable sediments at its base (a soft-bedded glacier). Soft-bedded ice masses are thought to be particularly sensitive to climate change. Yet, the mechanics of soft-bedded glacier flow remain poorly understood. Current ice sheet and glacier models used to predict future sea level rise rely on largely unconstrained parameterizations of basal shear stress an...
Natural resource extraction is the backbone of the arctic economy. Oil and gas exploration and production taxes account for 88% of the State of Alaska's revenue, providing $10.2 billion in fiscal year 2008. In addition, 4,400 direct and 37,344 indirect Alaskan jobs are due to this industry. In Canada, oil and gas are also crucial to the economy, but so too is diamond mining, with a total value of diamond extraction in the Northwest Territories of $2 billion in 2007. As a result, Canada is the 3r...
The Principal Investigators request support for an interdisciplinary, high-resolution study involving remote sensing and field investigations at two of Greenland's largest outlet glaciers. The study of the Helheim and Kangerdlugssuaq Glaciers will integrate seismological, glaciological, and geodetic observations to build an understanding of flow dynamics at major outlet glaciers, which represent a critical junction between the atmosphere, cryosphere, and hydrosphere. The project would be the fir...
Researchers from the Woods Hole Research Center and the American Museum of Natural History will investigate the "greening"of the Alaskan Arctic tundra and its relationship to climate change. Using satellite imagery, field validation, and modeling, the project seeks to (1) improve the spatial and temporal resolution of changes in tundra vegetation and its productivity, (2) investigate the causes of those changes, and (3) predict the likely future course of change. The implications of future trend...
This project comprises a four-year, passive warming experiment of low-Arctic tundra vegetation at a long-term study site in Greenland, with the primary aim of measuring the response of plant roots to warming, and the role of this response in ecosystem carbon exchange. Phenology, the annual timing and progression of events such as aboveground plant growth, is a well-studied an important component of the ecology of climate change, but remains under-studied belowground. This study will estimate and...
The project “Collaborative Research: Long-term observations in the Switchyard region of the Arctic Ocean as part of the Arctic Observing Network” (NSF Award Numbers 1022475 and 1023529) is a continuation of the work of the AON project “A Modular Approach to Building an Arctic Observing System for the IPY and Beyond in the Switchyard Region of the Arctic Ocean” (NSF Award Numbers 0633878 and 0633885,) from April 2007 to March 2011 and “Collaborative Research: Circulation in the freshwater switchy...
Rapid changes in the arctic climate system that occurred in the relatively recent past can be compared with the output of climate models to improve the understanding of the processes responsible for nonlinear system change. This study focuses on the transition between the Holocene thermal maximum (HTM) and the onset of Neoglaciation, and on the step-like changes that occurred subsequently during the late Holocene. The millennial-scale cooling trend that followed the HTM coincides with the decrea...
Funds are provided to build on activities of the Seasonal Ice Zone Observing Network (SIZONet). SIZONet Phase I led to the development of the sea-ice system services (SISS) concept, describing societal benefits (and potentially negative impacts) derived from the ice cover. By assessing the nature and extent of SISS, the PIs are able to build a sea-ice observing network that is responsive to the needs of both the scientific community and key stakeholders. SIZONet builds on collaboration with seve...
Funding is provided to obtain new ice core accumulation records from Combatant Col, Mt. Waddington, in southwestern British Columbia (BC), Canada. Combatant Col is located significantly farther south than other existing ice core sites along the west coast of North America and variations in precipitation tend to be out of phase with those in Alaska and the Yukon. Combatant Col sits at 3000 meters and contains more than 200 meters of ice. The net annual snow accumulation is ~2.5 meters/year and...
The Science Coordination Office (SCO) serves the scientific community, NSF/OPP, and the arctic logistics contractor by coordinating input and providing an organized mechanism for OPP to consult with regarding decisions at Summit Station. SCO makes recommendations to CPS about ways to accommodate or mitigate conflicting requests from different science teams, as well as suggesting ways investigators might accomplish science objectives with smaller logistical impacts. SCO advocates on behalf of the...
The major research goal of this project is to characterize the seasonal linkages between land surface greenness and a suite of land, atmosphere and ocean measures in the context of Arctic tundra vegetation. We have analyzed the seasonality of Arctic sea ice concentrations, land surface temperatures and NDVI and how they have changed over the satellite record. These regional time series are provided in the data archive. We have investigated additional remote sensing data (e.g. snow), climate data...
Arctic soils have large stores of carbon (C) and may act as a significant CO2 source with warming. However, the key to understanding tundra soil processes is nitrogen (N), as both plant growth and decomposition are severely N limited. However, current models of tundra ecosystems and their responses to climate change assume that while N limits plant growth, C limits decomposition. In addition, N availability is strongly seasonal with relatively high availability early in the growing season follow...
The North Eemian (NEEM) Deep Ice Core Project was designed to acquire a new ice core in northern Greenland. NEEM is an international effort, led by the glaciology group at the University of Copenhagen. More than a dozen countries have expressed a desire to participate. The US is a main partner in NEEM and is already providing about one-third of the logistics costs needed to collect the ice core. US scientists will take the lead on gas and gas isotope analyses and studies of the physics of gas in...
The scientific goals and methods that address the intellectual merits of the research are: (1) Expand on existing lake monitoring sites in northern Alaska by developing a network of regionally representative lakes along environmental gradients from which we will collect baseline data to assess current physical, chemical, and biological lake characteristics. This will allow the project scientists to make spatial and temporal comparisons to determine the impact of warmer temperatures, changing...
This collaborative research effort sought to apply the stable isotope techniques pioneered by the principal investigators for Axel Heiberg terrestrial fossils across a Trans-Arctic trajectory of Eocene field sites. The principal investigators retrieved fossil materials from the Eastern High Arctic (Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere Island; 2008), the Western High Arctic (Banks Island; 2009), and near Anchorage, Alaska (2010). Fieldwork and the resulting analyses of sediments and plant/vertebrate fossil...
The Bering Strait throughflow is critical for the Chukchi Sea and the upper Arctic Ocean. It is important in the global freshwater cycle and influences the Atlantic overturning circulation and possibly world climate. The throughflow variability (seasonal and interannual) impacts the role of Pacific waters in the Arctic, especially the ventilation depth. The water properties provide valuable boundary information for Arctic and global studies, including realistic modeling of the Chukchi Sea and Ar...
This award supports the continuation and expansion of long-term measurements of the Arctic atmosphere, snow, and other Earth system components at the Summit, Greenland, Environmental Observatory (GEOSummit). The original measurement program began in 2003 and contributes to the Arctic Observing Network (AON) and the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH). Year-round measurements at least 10 years in duration are required to observe and quantify the roles of large-scale, multiyear oscillati...
This Arctic Observing Network (AON) project will conduct Beaufort Gyre Observational System (BGOS) operations begun in 2003 during 2009-2014 to document the unprecedented changes in sea ice and ocean parameters that are presently occurring in the Beaufort Gyre (BG) region. The project will measure time series of temperature, salinity, currents, geochemical tracers, sea ice draft, and sea level using bottom-tethered moorings and shipboard measurements. Three moorings will acquire precise data on ...
This project is a collaboration with Barry, CIRES, University of Colorado, Boulder (0632296). This project will develop a Cooperative Arctic Data and Information Service (CADIS) that will support the Arctic Observing Network (AON) and Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) programs. CADIS will provide the discovery, access, and use of scientific data by providing near-real-time data delivery, a repository for data storage, a portal for the discovery, and tools to manipulate data. This sys...
This project is a renewal of NSF funding of the International Arctic Buoy Programme (IABP) through the U.S. Interagency Arctic Buoy Program (USIABP). The project will coordinate data management and deployment of enhanced buoys by the USIABP. The IABP provides long-term observations from the Arctic Ocean which are essential for Arctic forecasting and research. This project supports a network of automatic data buoys to monitor synoptic-scale fields of surface air pressure, air temperature, and ice...
This project involves long-term core measurements of the Arctic atmosphere, snow and other Earth system components at the Summit Greenland Environmental Observatory (GEOSummit). GEOSummit was the site of the GISP2 ice core, completed in 1993, and has been a site of atmospheric, snow and other geophysical measurements ever since. It is currently the only high-altitude site for atmospheric and related measurements in the Arctic. As global atmospheric temperatures rise, the Arctic environment is ex...
This 5-year project supports continuing and expanding the collection of long-term measurements of the Arctic atmosphere, snow and other Earth system components at the Summit Greenland Environmental Observatory (GEOSummit), located at an elevation of 3100 m on the Greenland ice sheet. A core suite of measurements has been collected at GEOSummit since 1993 and this project provides for the continued operation of GEOSummit as long-term site for year-round disciplinary and interdisciplinary measurem...
This project will continue development and deployment in the Arctic Ocean of new ice-tethered profiling (ITP) buoys that are an automated profiling CTD instrument capable of returning daily high-vertical-resolution measurements of the upper 800 m ocean underneath sea-ice during all seasons over an approximately 3-year life time. The project is collaborative on an international scale and the plan is to eventually extend the scope of this work to involve up to 17 IPTs. Ideally they would be deploy...
Researchers under this grant will provide long-term measurements on permafrost and related activities for a three-year period. Activities include the upgrading and maintenance of the existing Alaskan and Russian borehole sites and technological, logistical and operational support of observations at selected sites in Russia. This is the US contribution to the proposed International Polar Year Thermal State of Permafrost (IPY/TSP) project that proposes to measure temperatures in a large number of ...
This project will maintain the University of Wisconsin Arctic High Spectral Resolution Lidar (AHSRL) at Eureka on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic. Instruments were initially deployed at Eureka in August of 2005 in efforts to extend the knowledge of Arctic cloudiness with additional long-term observation sites as part of the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH). The NOAA cloud radar and the AHSRL are part of this instrument suite. Both instruments are returning continuous high qu...
This is a proposal to study both ongoing and historical changes in dynamics at the rapidly retreating Columbia Glacier, in south central coastal Alaska. Tidewater glaciers (TWGs) like Columbia Glacier terminate in the ocean and merit special attention because they exhibit some of the largest and strongly non-linear dynamic volume changes of all glaciers worldwide. In addition, most ice sheet mass loss occurs at marine-ending outlet glaciers that display dynamic instabilities very similar to TWG....
The PIs propose to develop a new, high-resolution (annual to sub-decadal) paleoclimate record (0-1,000 y) from sediment cores taken on the Arctic inner continental shelf. The proposal is a follow-up to a regular Arctic Natural Sciences panel submission that was criticized during review due to 1) absence of adequate data to substantiate a high-quality paleoclimate record in this setting, and 2) questions about the logistical success in light of the absence of UNOLS vessels to work in the high Arc...
This project, Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic (ELOKA), addresses a gap in data management for Arctic research - the urgent need for effective and appropriate means of recording, storing, and managing data and information being collected in Arctic communities. Local and traditional knowledge (LTK) research and community-based monitoring efforts are on the rise, but to date there has been very little done to coordinate these projects or the information they have collect...
This research will investigate nutrient cycling in spring-fed streams in northern Alaska. Spring-fed streams with perennial flow and near-constant water temperatures (3- 7oC) are relatively widespread on the eastern North Slope of Alaska, where other headwater streams freeze solid for more than six months of the year. One of the driving hypotheses is that, because temperatures remain nearly constant year-round, rates of heterotrophic biological activity (e.g., secondary production, ecosystem res...
The 2007 Anaktuvuk River (AR) fire created a unique opportunity to observe the response of a pristine tundra landscape to a major disturbance. The area burned is large enough ( is greater than 1000 km2) that its impacts can be measured directly at multiple scales, from small plots, to small (first-order) catchments and hillslopes, to large (third-order) catchments, to the atmospheric boundary layer above the entire burn. As the burned area recovers over time, observations of changes in key ecosy...
The objective of this project is to develop a novel instrument for ultra-trace level determination of the halogen atom (Cl, Br, and I) and radical (ClO, BrO and IO) concentrations in the air above the Arctic Ocean. The development of the instrument will help to address the hypothesis that halogen atom chemistry derived from salt associated with the surface of the sea ice has a very large impact on the oxidizing power of the Arctic atmospheric boundary layer. This in turn results in production of...
Eureka, Nunavut, Canada 80.050 N, 86.417 W, Ellesmere Island The Eureka station is composed of three sites: Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL), Zero altitude Pearl Auxiliary Laboratory (0PAL), and Surface and Atmospheric Flux, Irradiance and Radiation Extension (SAFIRE). PEARL is situated on higher terrain in order to sample the atmosphere above the aerosol layer, from ground level to the middle and upper atmosphere, whereas 0PAL is closer to sea level in order to sample w...
Researchers supported by this grant will deploy an array of autonomous ice mass balance buoys designed to ascertain thermodynamic changes in the mass balance of arctic sea ice. Specifically, the ice mass balance (IMB) buoys will be incorporated in the Developing Arctic Modelling and Observing Capabilities for Long-term Environmental Studies (DAMOCLES) atmosphere-ice-ocean observing array, the large European Union IPY effort to characterize arctic climate change and its likely impacts. The sea-ic...
This award supports a field campaign that will expand the Arctic Observing Network (AON) by adding cloud, atmosphere, and precipitation measurements, and associated higher-order data products, to Summit, Greenland, at the top of the Greenland Ice Sheet. The proposed instrument suite consists of a cloud radar, two microwave radiometers, an Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer, an X-band precipitation sensor, a ceilometer, a micropulse lidar, and a twice-daily radiosonde program. Measuremen...
Craig Tweedie of the University of Texas at El Paso will determine how key structural and functional characteristics of high latitude terrestrial ecosystems in the Arctic have changed over the past 25 or more years and predict whether such changes are likely to continue. The PI will play a leading role in the international Back to the Future project (IPY project #214). He will establish a focused international Back to the Future coordination and invormation web portal; rescue data and re-establi...
This collaboration of Kruse, University of Alaska, Anchorage (0638408, LEAD) and Hamilton, University of New Hampshire (0638413) is part of the Arctic Observation Network (AON), initiated as part of the International Polar Year, and will implement phase one human dimension priorities of the Study of Arctic Environmental Change (SEARCH) program. This Human Dimension Observation System is designed to become part of a network of measurement systems developed within SEARCH. The goal of the researche...
The position of the Arctic treeline is an important regulator of surface energy budgets, carbon cycling, habitat availability and subsistence resources in high latitude environments. Changes in the health and spatial extent of the arctic forest are largely governed by relationships among climate and the physiology, growth and reproductive success of the trees. Previous work along a longitudinal gradient in the Brooks Range, Alaska, showed a pattern of declining growth in response to rising tempe...
High latitude regions of the world are very sensitive to the climate and this is reflected in the hydrologic response of watersheds. Because of increasing greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, it is predicted that climate dynamics will change for these arctic regions. We already know that there are seasonal extremes in climate (no solar radiation/24 hour solar radiation, -40/+20, snow/rain), we do not know if there are long-term trends or where these trends are going to take us (although the evide...
Studies of Arctic vegetation change have typically been done at either the plot level or at regional/ecosystem scales. The intermediate scales associated with patches of individual shrubs have largely been ignored. This research will explore patch scale dynamics of arctic shrub expansion by quantifying and modeling the changes in shrub cover previously documented by repeat photography for the Colville River basin. Additional historic aerial photographs of the same sites will be acquired and the ...
This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The PI proposes to leverage the ongoing ICORTAS (Ice-Covered Ocean Response to Atmospheric Storms) field observations by augmenting the existing scientific goals to include a modeling component that will capitalize on a model?s ability to resolve temporal and spatial fields, aiding in interpretation of the data. Specific new goals will be a focus on shoaling and dissipation of near-inertial wave ...
The purpose of the North Pole Environmental Observatory (NPEO) is to help track and understand ongoing changes in the arctic environment, and to increase the availability of long-term environmental data in the Arctic by providing a data and infrastructure resource for other polar science and climate investigations. NPEO was first established in 2000 and includes an automated drifting station of buoys fixed to the sea ice, an ocean mooring, and airborne hydrographic surveys. The North Pole is an ...
The goal of this research is to measure explicitly the horizontal and vertical motion in the deep Canada Basin over one year. The researchers will add instruments to the deep portion of two moorings that are scheduled to be deployed in the Canada Basin for one IPY year (2007-2008). The additional instruments will record velocity, pressure, temperature, and salinity below 2200 m. These would be the first ever long time-series measurements in the deep Arctic Ocean's Canada Basin, and would provide...
This project will continue deployment of Autonomous Ocean Flux Buoys (AOFB) in the Central Arctic and to extend deployment to the Western Arctic on ice floes with co-located instruments measuring T/S profiles, ice fluxes and surface forcing including atmospheric bulk fluxes and radiative terms. Observations of vertical fluxes of heat, salt and momentum between the ocean interior and surface are important to our understanding and modeling of processes that maintain perennial ice cover in the Arct...
This observational study combines satellite measurements, lidar measurements, and meteorological soundings and analyses to study the troposphere, stratosphere, and mesosphere will be conducted. The study is an international collaboration between investigators at six institutions in Canada, Germany, Japan and the United States. The satellite observations yield global synoptic-scale temperature measurements of the mesosphere and upper stratosphere while the meteorological soundings and analyses pr...
The goal of this project is to investigate the long-range transport of radioactive material from the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor incident to sites in Alaska (Denali National Park) and Greenland (Thule and Summit Station). Fallout from the accident at these sites could potentially be used as a time marker in future studies of ice and snow samples from these areas, just as fallout from weapons testing and the Chernobyl incident are used to date samples from 1958-1963 and 1986, res...
This award will support two workshops, including one in the Bering Strait region, that will bring together representatives from the scientific research, local/native and operational observing communities to develop a science plan and recommend priorities for the implementation of a sustained, long-term Bering Strait environmental observing system that is an integral part of the Arctic Observing Network (AON). The Bering Strait is a vital element of the Arctic Ocean environmental system, as it is...
This collaborative project is composed of the following: 0632277 (Oberbauer, Florida International University, LEAD), 0632184 (Welker, UAA), 0632144 (Klein, CSU) and 0632263 (Hollister, GVSU) and will use isotopes and remote sensing to measure phenology, community composition, and ecosystem properties in response to background climate changes and to long-term warming treatments in continuation of work begun under the International Tundra Experiment (ITEX). The overarching goals of this project a...
Funding for this award will enable continuation for three years of a program of trace gas measurements in the middle atmosphere (stratosphere and mesosphere) over Thule Air Base, Greenland, using a ground-based millimeter-wave spectrometer (GBMS). The GBMS employs remote sensing to detect and measure molecular rotational emission lines. The species observed are used in monitoring and measuring the chemical and physical state of the polar atmosphere, which undergoes rapid changes during the Winte...
This award supports the continuation of the aerial hydrographic surveys component of the North Pole Environmental Observatory (NPEO) as part of the Arctic Observing Network (AON) and the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH). During the annual aerial hydrographic surveys a number of tasks will be completed: (1) conductivity/salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen and nutrient profiles will be measured in the water column; (2) water samples will be retrieved and returned to the laboratory...
This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The goal of this project is to maintain the existing ITEX AON and increase the applicability of the data collected to the greater scientific community. The International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) network has collected data on phenology, plant growth, community composition and ecosystem properties as part of a greater effort to study environmental arctic change. The network, started in early 1990's, h...
The key objective of this three-year award is to further the international and multidisciplinary development of the terrestrial Circumarctic Environmental Observatories Network (CEON, www.ceoninfo.org). CEON's mission is to strengthen the capacity for emerging monitoring, research and policy needs at high northern latitudes by making data available that is adequate and suitable for addressing a series of well defined key scientific questions and uncertainties. As a priority, this award aims to s...
This project explores the hypothesis that the state and variability of the Beaufort Gyre (BG) system (ocean, sea ice and atmosphere) are natural indicators of Arctic climate health. The major goal of this project is to understand the structure of the BG system, its regulating mechanisms, and impact on Arctic climate. The project team intends to accomplish this by investigating the composition and variability during the period 2003 - 2008 of the atmospheric, cryospheric and oceanic components of ...
This grant is a collaboration of 0612331 (Matrai, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, LEAD), 0611992 (Perovich, CRREL), 0612047 (Shepson, Purdue University) and 0612457 (Simpson, UAF). The focus of this project is on the measurement of three key atmospheric chemical species, BrO, ozone and CO2. The latter two are two of the most important greenhouse gases that have, as yet, poorly understood, behavior in the Arctic. BrO is a reaction intermediate that is involved in the extraordinary ozone an...
This project is a collaboration between Woodgate, UW (0632154), and Weingartner, UAF (0631713). The Bering Strait, a narrow (~ 85 km wide), shallow (~ 50 m deep) strait at the northern end of the Pacific, is the only ocean gateway between the Pacific and the Arctic. Although the flow through the strait is small in volume, due to its remarkable properties (high heat and freshwater content, low density, high nutrients) it has a startling strong influence, not only on the Chukchi Sea and the Arctic...
The Polaris Project is engaging students and early career scientists in a multifaceted effort that includes: a field course and research experience for undergraduate students in the Siberian Arctic; several new arctic-focused undergraduate courses taught by project Co-PIs at their respective colleges across the United States and in Russia; the opportunity for Co-PIs to initiate research programs in the Siberian Arctic; and a wide range of outreach activities. The unifying scientific theme for th...
Researchers under this grant will provide long-term measurements on permafrost and related activities for a three-year period. Activities include the upgrading and maintenance of the existing Alaskan and Russian borehole sites and technological, logistical and operational support of observations at selected sites in Russia. This is the US contribution to the proposed International Polar Year Thermal State of Permafrost (IPY/TSP) project that proposes to measure temperatures in a large number of ...
In a rapidly changing Arctic, the shrinking and thinning sea-ice cover plays an important role as indicator and agent of environmental change. A dramatic shrinking of the perennial ice cover has greatly increased the extent and hence importance of the Arctic seasonal ice zone (SIZ). The SIZ is predicted to occupy much of the Arctic by mid- to late century, but data are sorely lacking to aid in tracking, understanding and predicting change over this important component of the Arctic cryosphere. T...
Since 2003, the Principal Investigators have been administering a summer REU site on the Svalbard archipelago for motivated geoscience undergraduate students. The students undertake important climate change research and experience the challenges and rewards of conducting high latitude research. The primary research goal is to understand how climate influences the modern glacial, fluvial lacustrine, and fjord systems. By studying these modern processes, students will interpret the sediment record...
This project will deploy ocean flux buoys in the Arctic ocean as part of a group effort to contribute to the goals of the IPY and the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) project by: (1) implementing automated monitoring of oceanic fluxes that, along with their atmospheric counterparts, determine the thermodynamic balance of sea ice at a time of significant change in ice volume and extent. It is this balance, considered throughout the basin, that will determine if the Arctic transitions...
This grant will work in conjunction with multiple national and international IPY projects to include: the Russian Central Arctic Ocean Complex Study (CAOCS), the Canadian Ocean Monitoring Experiment (COME) and the Canadian Arctic Margin Experiment (CAME) projects; the European Union Developing Arctic Modeling and Observing Capabilities of Long-term Environmental Studies (DAMOCLES) project; will use the facilities at the North Pole Environmental Observatory (NPEO), and be a part of the Internatio...
In 1987, responding to serious ozone depletion reported in Antarctica, the National Science Foundation established a network of instruments to observe solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation at high latitudes. The network eventually grew to seven sites including two Arctic locations at Barrow, Alaska (71° 19’ N), and Summit, Greenland (72° 34’ N). Data available through ACADIS include measurements of UV radiation and related data products from Barrow starting in 1991 and from Summit starting in 2004. ...
In 1987, responding to serious ozone depletion reported in Antarctica, the National Science Foundation established a network of instruments to observe solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation at high latitudes. The network eventually grew to seven sites including two Arctic locations at Barrow, Alaska (71° 19’ N), and Summit, Greenland (72° 34’ N). Data available through ACADIS include measurements of UV radiation and related data products from Barrow starting in 1991 and from Summit starting in 2004. E...
Ice-based buoys exist that can measure temperature profiles, but these are not optimized for observing the open sea. Thus the objective of this proposal is to fill this gap in the Arctic Observing Network measurement strategy, i.e., to measure the time history of summer warming and subsequent fall cooling of the seasonally open water areas of the Arctic Ocean. The PIs will focus on those areas with the greatest ice retreat, i.e., the northern Beaufort, Chukchi, East Siberian, and Laptev Seas. Th...
The Foundation for Glacier and Environmental Research offers an eight week, residential, Young Scholars project in interdisciplinary environmental earth sciences for 15 students entering grade 12 and 3 teachers in an MSTP component. The program will be implemented on Alaska's Juneau Icefield through lectures, seminars, field work, and research projects in field and environmental sciences (geology, atmospheric sciences, surveying, etc.) under the guidance of an international faculty and staff. ...