Date

ANNOUNCEMENT REVISION
Call for Abstracts
American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2004 Fall Meeting
Session OS 02 - "Change in the Arctic Marine Environment: Recent Findings"

The AGU Submission Form is available online at:
http://submissions4.agu.org/submission/entrance.asp

Please note the following additions to the Arctic Info recently sent out
regarding the Call for Abstracts for Session OS 02 at the AGU 2004 Fall
Meeting.


We call the oceanographic community's attention to AGU 2004 Fall Meeting
special session OS 02, focusing on recent findings regarding change in
the Arctic marine environment. (See text of session description, below.)
This has been an exciting era for study of the Arctic Ocean and Nordic
Seas, bringing not only much improved knowledge of the oceanographic
state of the region and its relationship to the other oceans, but also a
rapidly-evolving view of the region's response and contribution to
change. Knut Aagaard, Leif Anderson, Cecilia Bitz, Ed Carmack, Tore
Furevik, and Jacob Sewall will give invited talks. We invite additional
contributions from a wide range of research, to demonstrate the
community's success at developing a comprehensive 'big picture' as well
as the progress and prognosis on observations and models of the Arctic
marine environment's role in and response to change. We are also using
this special session to recognize Knut Aagaard's career of contributions
to Arctic marine science. His research has focused on some of what have
become central topics of our studies of Arctic change. Knut's love of
the natural world and its study, his innate curiosity, unfailing
generosity, and unimpeachable integrity have had a lasting influence
upon our community. Contributors are welcome to consider this
complementary aspect of the session in their presentations. A dinner in
Knut's honor during the AGU meeting is being considered. Those
interested in learning more about that event should email Jim Swift at
jswift [at] ucsd.edu.

SESSION DESCRIPTION
This session seeks to bring together the latest observational and model
findings about the present state of the Arctic marine environment, in
recognition of the substantial changes in the sea ice, ocean, and
atmospheric circulation that have been documented for the past few
decades in the Arctic Ocean and Nordic Seas. Measurements and model
results suggest that changes in the balance of Atlantic and Pacific
influences in the upper layers, ice distributions, mid-depth
temperatures in the Arctic Ocean, in the reach of open-ocean convection,
and the balance of Arctic and Atlantic influences in the Nordic Seas
could be profound, prolonged, and far reaching. An objective of the
session is to develop a reasonably comprehensive picture of the state of
our understanding of this system, which comprises a remarkable
contributor to freshwater and salt balances of the North Atlantic and
World Oceans. Presentations which explore the nature and causes of
ocean, sea ice, and atmosphere variability in the Arctic ocean and
Nordic Seas are particularly welcomed. Works exploring the implications
of observed or modeled changes for the Arctic marine system and larger
global systems are equally of interest.

Conveners:
Kelly Kenison Falkner
E-mail: kfalkner [at] coas.oregonstate.edu

Jamie Morison
E-mail: morison [at] snark.apl.washington.edu

James H. Swift
E-mail: jswift [at] ucsd.edu

Thomas J. Weingartner
E-mail: weingart [at] ims.alaska.edu