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NOAA’s Participation in Arctic Observing Activities

John A. CalderDirector, Arctic Research Program

Climate Program Office

March 18, 2008

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Introduction

NOAA has several missions in polar regions, especially the Arctic– Weather, climate, living marine resources, coastal hazards

• The pulse of IPY data and new interest in international cooperation provide an opportunity for NOAA to improve mission effectiveness in polar regions

• Environmental observations and modeling are the foundation of NOAA’s services and are the main contributions by NOAA to the IPY

• NOAA’s polar efforts will continue beyond the IPY and should contribute to the international legacy aspects of the IPY

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Physical Variability and Ecological Response to Reduced Sea Ice in Bering/Chukchi Region

• NOAA, with NSF and Russian partners, conducts annual observation and mooring deployment in Bering Strait to observe physical state, fluxes through the Strait, and their trends

• Physical-Ecological surveys every 4 years detect water column structure, productivity, biomass, and biodiversity trends

• Major program planned for summer 2008

4Actual RUSALCA Stations, 2004

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North Pacific Climate Regimes and Ecosystem Productivity

Mission: Conduct research on climate variability and ecosystem response in the North Pacific to improve scientific understanding and guidance for resource managers.

Operations: Collect information from surveys, transects and biophysical moorings in climate-sensitive, large marine ecosystems; analyze results; develop climate-ecosystem indices of ecosystem status and models to predict future states of the ecosystem and individual populations of living marine resources.

Products: Climate-ecosystem indices and forecasts for the North Pacific Fishery Management Council; data streams for AOOS and IOOS; web-based information for stakeholders and public.

Biophysical observations in the eastern Bering Sea and northwestern Gulf of Alaska helped determine Arctic warming and its effects.

What will happen to the Bering Sea fishery? The eastern Bering Sea has warmed dramatically since the beginning of the 21st century.

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Inflow of Atlantic Water into the Arctic Ocean: different rates during different phases of multidecadal variability? [Adapted from Polyakov et al., 2004]

Increase of the Atlantic Water heat content associated with multi-

decadal variations could cause 0.8-1.0 m loss in ice thickness over the

last 20 years.

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IABP and IMB Locations

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Atmospheric Observations

• Small network of observatories for clouds, radiation, aerosols

• Anchor points for satellite observations of the Arctic basin

• Improve model projections of sea ice

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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

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Tiksi, Russia

Alert, Canada

Barrow, Alaska

Eureka, Canada

Summit, Greenland

Ny-Alesund, Svalbard

International Arctic Systems for Observing the Atmosphere

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Void between satellites and surface-based sensors

Unmanned Aircraft Systems have great potential to fill this void and take observations to complement our existing platforms.

Satellites often do poorly in the Arctic.

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Polar Winds from Feng Yun-3

CollaborationIn 2008, China will launch the Feng Yun-3 (FY3) polar-orbiting satellite. Impact studies at major numerical weather prediction centers have shown that satellite-derived polar winds improve forecasts globally. Therefore, the National Satellite Meteorological Center (NSMC, Beijing) would like to develop a polar wind product for FY-3. They are collaborating with U.S. scientists who have developed such products for NOAA and NASA satellites.

PersonnelUS: Jeff Key, NOAA/NESDIS at the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS), University of Wisconsin-Madison

China: Qisong Zhang, National Satellite Meteorological Center (NSMC), Beijing

StatusMr. Zhang spent 2.5 months at CIMSS this past summer evaluating algorithms for estimating tropospheric winds from polar-orbiting satellites. Zhang and Key will continue to collaborate throughout 2008.

http://stratus.ssec.wisc.edu/products/rtpolarwinds

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NOAA-GFDL Sea Ice Model: Current Formulation

• Full sea ice dynamics with elastic-viscous-plastic rheology

• 5 ice thickness categories + open water (leads) to represent subgrid heterogeneity

• 3 layer thermodynamics; 2 ice layers, 1 snow layer; representation of sensible and latent (internal brine) heat capacity

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NOAA-GFDL Sea Ice Model: Future Plans

• Review and tune-up of dynamical parameters to reproduce satellite and buoy drift observations

• Implement ridging scheme for better representation of subgrid ice deformation

• Explicit representation of visible/near-ir and direct/diffuse solar radiation streams

• Simulate, rather than parameterize, apparent optical properties (reflectivity and transmissivity) based upon inherent optical properties of ice and snow

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Analysis Products

• State of the Arctic Report

• Evaluation of IPCC model runs

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Next SOA Topics

• Atmosphere• Ocean• Sea ice• Land• Greenland ice sheet• Biology

A new format used - a simple “report card” with back-up science papers. www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard

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Arctic land temperature forecasts from 12 IPCC models that hindcast well for the 20th Century *Thick blue line is average of all forecasts and shows the anthropogenic contribution for medium emissions scenario with a 3 C increase by 2050*Other lines are possible futures combining natural climate variability and the long term trend.

(C)

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What is the AON?

• A research program?

• A pilot for an international Arctic observing effort?

• How to transition from research to operations?– Establish a “requirement” for a certain set

of observations.

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Ocean Observing Requirements

• Observe and predict the seasonal to decadal state of the Arctic sea ice cover.

– Rationale – the more compelling, the higher the priority

– Approach – the more cost-effective, the higher the priority

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More “ocean requirements”

• Observe and predict on seasonal to decadal scales the heat and salt content, sea surface temperature, and sea surface height of the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas.

• Observe annual to decadal trends in ocean carbon and ocean acidification in the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas and assess factors contributing to those trends.

• Observe annual to decadal trends in carbon dioxide and methane fluxes across the air-sea interface, compute pan-Arctic ocean source-sink status, and project future trends.

• Detect and predict trends in populations of endangered, protected, and other key Arctic species, and measure and assess factors contributing to those trends.

• Observe and predict the populations of commercially valuable Arctic living marine resources, and measure and assess the factors affecting those populations.

• Observe and predict environmental forces posing risks to human use of the Arctic and its resources. (overarching requirement?)

• Observe and predict environmental forces posing risks to human social and cultural resources and values. (overarching requirement?)