Status Report: NOAA’s Arctic Goals for IPY & Beyond

1. Status Report:NOAA’s Arctic Goals for IPY & Beyond John Calder and Kathleen Crane Arctic Research Program, CPO Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

2. Menu State of the Arctic Report Current Activities NOAA’s Contributions to IPY Value to Society

3. State of the Arctic Report

4. SOA Table of Contents • Atmosphere • Circulation • Surface temperatures • Forcing of changes • Ocean • Circulation • Heat and freshwater content • Sea level • Sea Ice Cover • Extent and thickness • Surface conditions • Land • Vegetation • Water and ice • permafrost

5. Next SOA Topics • Atmosphere • Ocean • Sea ice • Land • Greenland ice sheet • Biology A new format will be used - a simple “report card” with back-up science papers.

6. Arctic Climate Observations • The SOA report reinforces that the Arctic has to be considered as a system • The Arctic Research Program from its inception has included ocean, ice, atmosphere and marine ecology as its main elements and continues to work in this way

7. Current Activities

8. Arctic Atmospheric Observing Network • Arctic Change Detection and System Analysis • RUSALCA • North Pacific Climate Regimes and Ecosystem Productivity • Arctic Sea Ice Thickness Observing Network

9. International Arctic Systems for Observing the Atmosphere Tiksi, Russia Barrow, Alaska Ny-Alesund, Svalbard Eureka, Canada Summit, Greenland Alert, Canada

10. Science Goals • Provide multi-decadal cloud, radiation, aerosol, meteorological and flux data • Use observations to understand atmospheric and surface processes at regional scale • Apply data to improve model parameterizations • Support calibration, algorithm development and validation for satellite observations • Serve as logistics base for diverse science observations, e.g., permafrost borehole, etc

11. RUSSIA USA RUSALCA RUSALCA Goals: • Observations where Arctic sea ice is reducing rapidly • Bering St. fresh water, nutrient fluxes • Regional physics and ecosystem response to change. • Improve international Arctic science collaboration • Explore the unknown Arctic with OE Russian American Long-term Census of the Arctic

12. A RUSALCA Goal: Gateway Fluxes via Long-term Moorings in Bering Strait NOAA, NSF, RAS will install 8 Moorings Across the Bering Strait in 2007

13. CF = Coastal Fish SCCF = South-Central Chukchi Fish WCF = Western Chukchi Fish NCF = Northern Chukchi Fish NCF WCF SCCF CF Demersal fish distribution Bottom Water Masses SSW BSW AW ACW • Fish community correlates reasonably well with water masses • Fish community also correlates positively with substrate type

14. Climate Change Scenarios in Eastern Chukchi Sea Increase in ACW conditions (fresher, warmer, less productive) • Less infauna, reduction of biomass hotspot • Probably unchanged epifauna ? • Re-distribution of fishes (expansion of south-central • Chukchi fish) • Invasion of invertebrates and fishes from Bering Sea • Longer food chains (less tight benthic-pelagic coupling)

15. RUSALCA Found Further North Walleye Pollock Theragra chalcogramma

16. North Pacific Climate Regimes & Ecosystem Productivity

17. Partnerships for Sustained Observations

18. Arctic Observing Network • Interagency, international effort to observe over decades, changes in the environment in the Arctic to provide stakeholders with climate, weather, research and resource information critical for the global society.

19. Goal: Contribute To the design Of an Arctic Observing Network Based on the SEARCH Implementation Plan and Existing Operational Networks

20. Developing International Science Partnerships • IPY • Arctic Regional GOOS • Arctic Observing Network (AON) and its developing international counterpart • Arctic GEOSS

21. NOAA Arctic Research:Coordination AON/GOOS/GEOSS Intragency International Interagency

22. International Polar Year

23. International Polar Year: Exploration-Observations RUSALCA: Exploration of Marine Life in the Pacific-Arctic: What lives in this part of the Arctic Ocean? How will it migrate due to climate change?

24. International Polar Year: Arctic Observations • Causes and Impacts of Recent Changes in the Pacific Arctic (RUSALCA) • Polar Atmospheric Observatories and Field Campaigns (IASOA) • Polar Stratospheric Ozone Depletion Observations • Autonomous under-ice systems testing (AGAVE expedition, methane fluxes from the seafloor) • Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)

25. International Polar Year: Observations • Causes and Impacts of Recent Changes in the Pacific Arctic (RUSALCA) • Polar Atmospheric Observatories and Field Campaigns (IASOA) • Polar Stratospheric Ozone Depletion Observations • Autonomous under-ice vehicles (AGAVE expedition, methane sensing) • Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)

26. International Polar Year: Observations • Causes and Impacts of Recent Changes in the Pacific Arctic (RUSALCA) • Polar Atmospheric Observatories and Field Campaigns (IASOA) • Polar Stratospheric Ozone Depletion Observations • Autonomous under-ice vehicles (AGAVE expedition, methane detection) • Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)

27. A UAS base would address the Arctic’s unique environmental threats.

28. International Polar Year:Prediction & Modeling • Short-term Arctic Predictability (STAP): THORPEX • Advances in Satellite Products and their Use in Numerical Weather Prediction • Arctic Climate Modeling:

29. International Polar Year: Data, Outreach & Decision Support • NOAA’s Data, Information, and Change Detection • Regional Integrated Science and Assessment (RISA) • National Ice Center (NIC) • Education: IPY/NSTA symposia • Association of Science and Technology Centers (IGLO PROGRAM) • Climate Change in the Arctic Ocean-Teacher Development project.

30. International Polar Year: Data, Outreach & Decision Support • NOAA’s Data, Information, and Change Detection • Regional Integrated Science and Assessment (RISA) • National Ice Center (NIC) • Education: IPY/NSTA symposia • Association of Science and Technology Centers (IGLO PROGRAM) • Climate Change in the Arctic Ocean-Teacher Development project.

31. Value to Society

32. Possible Arctic Influences on Global Climate Change: • Increase of methane in the atmosphere due to a thaw in the permafrost on land and under water • Fresh water /salt water unbalances, Ocean circulation disruption • Changing albedo of the planet due to melting of sea ice and taller vegetation • Extinction or migration of many species • Rising sea level due to the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet • Increase in severe weather 26

33. Melting permafrost release of greenhouse sequestered gases Changes in sea ice cover Change in planetary albedo Melting Greenland ice sheet – Rises in sea level Atmospheric Influences on the total system are profound

34. Sea Ice thinning is predicted to Continue Pacific Gateway

35. Major Alterations of Fresh Water transport to the Atlantic Impact on global thermohaline circulation 1979 1990

36. Effects on Commerce Reduction of Arctic sea ice may encourage shipping from Asia to Europe through the Arctic.

37. Thank You