SASS II Projects

Syntheses of Sea Ice, Climate, and Human Systems in the Arctic and Subarctic (SYNICE)

Dates:

1 October 2006 to 31 December 2007

The SYNICE project seeks to improve the understanding of pan-Arctic and North Atlantic climate and human systems through the integration and syntheses of several sea-ice data sets together with information from the physical and social sciences. The project is analyzing data from the past 1000 years, with major emphasis on the period c. AD 1800 to the present. Five major locations/sea-ice data sets are being considered: i) The sea-ice record from Iceland; ii) The sea-ice record from the Barents Sea area; iii) The record of historical ice conditions around Newfoundland and on the Grand Banks, and in the Gulf of...

Image Credit: Fridtjof Nansen

Understanding Change in the Climate and Hydrology of the Arctic Land Region: Synthesizing the Results of the ARCSS Fresh Water Initiative Projects

Dates:

1 October 2006 to 31 December 2007

The climate of the Arctic is changing. According to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), "Arctic climate is now warming rapidly, and much larger changes are projected". These changes are of concern because of their possible implications for global ocean circulation. The ARCSS Freshwater Integration Study (FWI) was designed to address the scientific basis of many of these broader issues that are related to the arctic freshwater cycle, especially over land. In particular, FWI has the objective of addressing "... key, unresolved issues ... [that are] fundamentally cross-disciplinary and synthetic in nature". Three of these issues deal directly with the...

The White Arctic: A Snow-Impacts Synthesis for the Terrestrial Arctic

Dates:

1 October 2006 to 31 December 2007

Intellectual merit: A defining feature of the Arctic is a long-lasting snow cover. It persists 7 to 10 months of the year, making white the dominant surface color of both Arctic marine and terrestrial systems. On land, snow impacts the Arctic System in four essential ways: by increasing albedo, by insulating the ground, by affecting mobility and foraging of animals and human transportation and commerce, and by playing a key role in the freshwater cycle. While snow has been discussed in literally hundreds of papers and appears in dozens of models (from process-level to GCM), a comprehensive, snow-centric synthesis has...

Climate Response to Future Changes in Arctic Snow Cover and Sea Ice: A New Perspective from the High-Resolution NCAR CCSM3

Dates:

1 October 2006 to 31 December 2007

Intellectual Merit: The PI's propose to investigate the impact of projected future changes in Arctic sea ice (extent, concentration and thickness) and snow cover (extent and depth) upon the global atmospheric circulation, the oceans, and surface climate using the new high-resolution (T85) version of the NCAR Community Climate System Model Version 3 (CCSM3). Their first step will be to investigate the linkages among the atmosphere, ocean, sea ice and snow cover in the 500 year control integration of CCSM3 under present-day greenhouse gas concentrations and in the multi-member ensemble of historical 20th century integrations of CCSM3. These linkages will then...

The Impact of Changes in Arctic Sea Ice on the Marine Planktonic Ecosystem - Synthesis and Modeling of Retrospective and Future

Dates:

1 October 2006 to 31 December 2007

Significant changes in arctic climate have been detected in recent decades. One of the most striking is the decline of sea ice concurrent with changes in atmospheric circulation and increased surface air temperature. This arctic warming trend is likely to continue into the future, leading to a diminished arctic sea ice cover that will significantly impact the arctic marine ecosystem and ultimately arctic and subarctic human communities. It is therefore critical to understand how changes in sea ice influence the marine ecosystem. To this end, this work will investigate the historical and contemporary changes of arctic sea ice, water column,...

Producing an Updated Synthesis of the Arctic's Marine Primary Production Regime and Its Controls

Dates:

1 October 2006 to 31 December 2007

Primary production provides the energy that fuels the Arctic Ocean (AO) ecosystem, as in all ecosystems. Understanding marine primary production (PP) and its controls is a critical step towards appreciating the Arctic Ocean as a system and allowing diagnostic modeling of its current status as well as prognostic modeling of future change. The focus of this proposal is to synthesize existing studies and data relating to AO PP and its changing physical controls such as light, nutrients, and stratification, and to use this synthesis to better understand how PP varies in time and space and as a function of climate...

Toward Reanalysis of the Arctic Climate System - Sea Ice and Ocean Reconstruction with Data Assimilation

Dates:

1 October 2006 to 31 December 2007

The PI's propose to develop an integrated set of assimilation procedures for the arctic ice-ocean system that are able to provide gridded data sets that are physically consistent and constrained to the historical observations of sea ice and ocean parameters. Building on their past research activities in sea ice and ocean data assimilation, they propose to make some first steps toward the creation of an Arctic Climate System Reanalysis that uses modern four-dimensional variational data assimilation methods employing new data assimilation procedures to maximize the integration of model results with observations. They will focus their attention on three distinct periods,...

The Roles of Clouds and their Accomplices in Modulating the Trajectory of the Arctic System

Dates:

1 October 2006 to 31 December 2007

The overarching objectives of the proposed effort are to identify and evaluate relationships between cloud properties, surface radiation fluxes, horizontal heat and moisture transport, large-scale circulation patterns, sea ice extent, and melt onset in past conditions when Arctic change was moderate, and in the future, which models project will be characterized by dramatic loss of permanent ice. Certain cloud-related interactions that were insignificant in the past may play more mid-latitude-like roles as the Arctic's ice disappears, such as exerting an overall cooling rather than warming influence. The proposed effort is aligned with the new directions of the ARCSS program, as...