SASS I Projects

Heterogeneity and Resilience of Human-Rangifer Systems: A Circumpolar Social-Ecological Synthesis

Dates:

1 January 2005 to 31 December 2005

The Human-Rangifer System is defined at the regional scale as the set of ecological-social processes underlying the human use of Rangifer. These processes include bio-physical interactions, socio-economic dynamics, the role of social institutions and organizations in shaping human adaptation. Resilience in these systems is the amount of disturbance to individual or multiple components that can be accommodated without change to alternative domains. The overarching goal of this project is to improve understanding of the relative resilience and adaptability of regional Human-Rangifer Systems to forces of global change, and to derive generalized propositions about their functional properties as critical aspects of...

Collaborative Research: Humans and Hydrology at High Latitudes

Dates:

1 January 2005 to 31 December 2005

Data for the dynamics, uses and values of freshwater in the Arctic are rapidly accumulating. However, it is currently unknown which regions of the pan-Arctic are most vulnerable to future changes. In order to begin to address the future change to freshwater availability on a pan-arctic scale, this team will use a system of arctic typologies to enable the integration of biophysical data with socio-cultural data produced regionally, such as demographics and water values. They will use mature data sets to study the strategic transformations of the high latitude water cycle. Recent studies suggest that climate change will have a...

Collaborative Research: A Synthesis of Rapid Meltwater and Ice Discharge Changes: Large Forcings from the Ice with Impacts on Global Sea Level and North Atlantic Freshwater Budgets

Dates:

1 January 2005 to 31 December 2005

Freshwater discharge from the Greenland ice sheet has a direct and immediate effect on global sea level, has the potential to impact global climate by perturbing nearby sensitive regions of oceanic deep-water formation, and is an important but as yet poorly quantified part of the pan-Arctic water balance. The investigators will synthesize a range of extant data sets using numerous methods. Remote sensing and atmospheric modeling calibrated by surface data accurately reveal a spatially resolved history of surface melting on Greenland over decades, and coastal weather stations extend observations to more than a century. Sophisticated transfer techniques, including nonlinear approaches,...

Collaborative Research: Greening of the Arctic - Synthesis and Models to Examine the Effects of Climate, Sea-ice, and Terrain on Circumpolar Vegetation Change

Dates:

1 January 2005 to 31 December 2005

Changes to the vegetation of the Arctic are intimately linked to changes to the sea-ice cover, land surface temperatures, and a host of terrain variables. The overarching goals of this research are to (1) explore the sea-ice/terrain/vegetation linkages by synthesizing a group of recently available long-term circumpolar databases, (2) examine how the vegetation of the circumpolar Arctic is responding to global climate change, and (3) use this information in combination with models to help predict future response of arctic vegetation. The project will address directly the question of how the terrestrial vegetation of the Arctic has responded to climate change...

Collaborative Research: Synthesis of Arctic System Carbon Cycle Research Through Model-Data Fusion Studies Using Atmospheric Inversion and Process-Based Approaches

Dates:

1 January 2005 to 31 December 2005

A large release of CO2 and CH4 from high latitude terrestrial and marine systems to the atmosphere has the potential to affect the climate system in a way that may accelerate global warming. To improve our ability to predict the dynamics of carbon in high latitudes, this team will analyze comprehensively the carbon cycle of the arctic system, guided by the following general questions: What are the geographic patterns of fluxes of CO2 and CH4 over the Pan-Arctic region and how is the balance changing over time and; What processes control the sources and sinks of CO2 and CH4 over...

Arctic Surface Air Temperatures for the Past 100 years: Analysis and Reconstruction of an Integrated Data Set for Arctic System Science

Dates:

1 January 2005 to 31 December 2005

The Arctic has long been considered a harbinger of global climate change since increases in surface air temperature (SAT) over the globe are amplified in the Arctic. These increases in SAT have a profound impact on many other aspects of Arctic climate and ecology. For example, the thinning and decrease in area of Arctic sea ice has been attributed to increases in SAT, and many plant and animal species have been migrating further north. In order to better understand these processes, accurate fields of SAT are required, but as of yet, a robust gridded data set of SAT of sufficient...

Collaborative Research: Synthesis of Modes of Ocean-Ice-Atmosphere Covariability in the Arctic System from Multivariate Century-Scale Observations

Dates:

1 January 2005 to 31 December 2005

The project is an integrated statistical analysis of a comprehensive set of long time series from the Arctic and subpolar North Atlantic. These multivariate records include meteorological and oceanographic measurements, sea ice observations and climate indices. The project data set will comprise: a subset of the multidecadal to century-scale ‘Unaami’ Data Collection, and a set of relatively unknown, century-scale time series from the subpolar North Atlantic (Nordic Seas, Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands and Norway) and Arctic that is new to the US community. These data will be organized and analyzed using a comprehensive set of advanced time–frequency statistical methods including...

Collaborative Research on Sunlight and the Arctic Atmosphere-Ice-Ocean System

Dates:

1 January 2005 to 31 December 2005

The distinct annual cycle of solar radiation is a key defining feature of the Arctic system. The lack of sunlight in winter and the long daylight hours in summer structure both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, drive the seasonal build-up and sequestration of carbon and control the annual cycle of the surface heat budget. Recent research has also demonstrated that the seasonal photochemistry of snow over sea ice plays a major role in the cycling of major atmospheric constituents. One of the most important aspects of the disposition of solar radiation within the Arctic system is the reflection, absorption and transmission...

Collaborative Research: A Heat Budget Analysis of the Arctic Climate System

Dates:

1 January 2005 to 31 December 2005

The Arctic System can be viewed as a set of interconnected and interacting physical, biological and human components. Arguably the most integrating component of the full Arctic system is its climate system. The mean state, variability and change in the climate system exert strong controls on biological processes and human activities. Arctic climate is in turn tightly coupled to the global system. This is an effort towards synthesis of the Arctic climate system that distills the wealth of data assembled though ARCSS and other national and international efforts in a tractable, integrating heat budget framework. While the Arctic climate system...