NASA, NSIDC to Hold Media Teleconference on Arctic Sea Ice Record Low

J.D. Harrington

Headquarters, Washington

202-358-5241

j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

 

Maria-Jose Vinas

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

301-614-5883

mj.vinas@nasa.gov

GREENBELT, Md. -- The extent of the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean has shrunk. According to scientists from NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo., the amount is the smallest size ever observed in the three decades since consistent satellite observations of the polar cap began.

NASA and NSIDC scientists will host a media teleconference at 3 p.m. EDT, today, to discuss this new record low for summertime Arctic sea ice cover.

The extent of Arctic sea ice on Aug. 26, as measured by the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager on the U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program spacecraft and analyzed by NASA and NSIDC scientists, was 1.58 million square miles (4.10 million square kilometers), or 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometers) below the Sept. 18, 2007, daily extent of 1.61 million square miles (4.17 million square kilometers).

The sea ice cap naturally grows during the cold Arctic winters and shrinks when temperatures climb in the spring and summer. But over the last three decades, satellites have observed a 13 percent decline per decade in the minimum summertime extent of the sea ice. The thickness of the sea ice cover also continues to decline.

"The persistent loss of perennial ice cover -- ice that survives the melt season -- led to this year's record summertime retreat," said Joey Comiso, senior research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Unlike 2007, temperatures were not unusually warm in the Arctic this summer."

The new record was reached before the end of the melt season in the Arctic, which usually takes place in mid- to late-September. Scientists expect to see an even larger loss of sea ice in the coming weeks.

"In 2007, it was actually much warmer," Comiso said. "We are losing the thick component of the ice cover. And if you lose the thick component of the ice cover, the ice in the summer becomes very vulnerable."

"By itself it's just a number, and occasionally records are going to get set," NSIDC research scientist Walt Meier said about the new record. "But in the context of what's happened in the last several years and throughout the satellite record, it's an indication that the Arctic sea ice cover is fundamentally changing."

The panelists for the briefing are:

-- Joey Comiso, senior research scientist, Goddard

-- Walt Meier, research scientist, NSDIC

To participate in the teleconference and obtain dial-in information, reporters must contact Maria-Jose Vinas at mj.vinas@nasa.gov or Natasha Vizcarra at natasha.vizcarra@nsidc.org by 3 p.m. EDT today.

For more information and supporting images, go to http://go.nasa.gov/PmOyHo.

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Remote Siberian Lake Holds Clues to Arctic--and Antarctic--Climate Change

Fates of polar ice sheets appear to be linked

Intense warm climate intervals--warmer than scientists thought possible--have occurred in the Arctic over the past 2.8 million years.

That result comes from the first analyses of the longest sediment cores ever retrieved on land. They were obtained from beneath remote, ice-covered Lake El'gygytgyn (pronounced El'gee-git-gin) ("Lake E") in the northeastern Russian Arctic.

The journal Science published the findings this week.

They show that the extreme warm periods in the Arctic correspond closely with times when parts of Antarctica were also ice-free and warm, suggesting a strong connection between Northern and Southern Hemisphere climate.

The polar regions are much more vulnerable to climate change than researchers thought, say the National Science Foundation-(NSF) funded Lake E project's co-chief scientists: Martin Melles of the University of Cologne, Germany; Julie Brigham-Grette of the University of Massachusetts Amherst; and Pavel Minyuk of Russia's North-East Interdisciplinary Scientific Research Institute in Magadan.

The exceptional climate warming in the Arctic, and the inter-hemispheric interdependencies, weren't known before the Lake E studies, the scientists say.

Lake E was formed 3.6 million years ago when a huge meteorite hit Earth, leaving an 11-mile-wide crater. It's been collecting layers of sediment ever since.

The lake is of interest to scientists because it has never been covered by glaciers. That has allowed the uninterrupted build-up of sediment at the bottom of the lake, recording hitherto undiscovered information on climate change.

Cores from Lake E go far back in time, almost 30 times farther than Greenland ice cores covering the past 110,000 years.

The sediment cores from Lake El'gygytgyn reflect the climate and environmental history of the Arctic with great sensitivity, say Brigham-Grette and colleagues.

The physical, chemical and biological properties of Lake E's sediments match the known global glacial/interglacial pattern of the ice ages.

Some warm phases are exceptional, however, marked by extraordinarily high biological activity in the lake, well above that of "regular" climate cycles.

To quantify the climate differences, the scientists studied four warm phases in detail: the two youngest, called "normal" interglacials, from 12,000 years and 125,000 years ago; and two older phases, called "super" interglacials, from 400,000 and 1.1 million years ago.

According to climate reconstructions based on pollen found in sediment cores, summer temperatures and annual precipitation during the super interglacials were about 4 to 5 degrees C warmer, and about 12 inches wetter, than during normal interglacials.

The super interglacial climates suggest that it's nearly impossible for Greenland's ice sheet to have existed in its present form at those times.

Simulations using a state-of-the-art climate model show that the high temperature and precipitation during the super interglacials can't be explained by Earth's orbital parameters or variations in atmospheric greenhouse gases alone, which geologists usually see as driving the glacial/interglacial pattern during ice ages.

That suggests that additional climate feedbacks are at work.

"Improving climate models means that they will better match the data that has been collected," says Paul Filmer, program director in NSF's Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the "Lake E" project along with NSF's Office of Polar Programs.

"The results of this collaboration among scientists in the U.S., Austria, Germany and Russia are providing a challenge for researchers working on climate models: they now need to match results from Antarctica, Greenland--and Lake El'gygytgyn."

Adds Simon Stephenson, director of the Division of Arctic Sciences in NSF's Office of Polar Programs, "This is a significant result from NSF's investment in frontier research during the recent International Polar Year.

"'Lake E' has been a successful partnership in very challenging conditions.  These results make a significant contribution to our understanding of how Earth's climate system works, and improve our understanding of what future climate might be like."

The scientists suspect the trigger for intense interglacials might lie in Antarctica.

Earlier work by the international ANDRILL program discovered recurring intervals when the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melted. (ANDRILL, or the ANtarctic geological DRILLing project, is a collaboration of scientists from five nations--Germany, Italy, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States--to recover geologic records from the Antarctic margin.)

The current Lake E study shows that some of these events match with the super interglacials in the Arctic.

The results are of global significance, they believe, demonstrating strong indications of an ongoing collapse of ice shelves around the Antarctic Peninsula and at the margins of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet--and a potential acceleration in the near future.

The Science paper co-authors discuss two scenarios for future testing that could explain the Northern Hemisphere-Southern Hemisphere climate coupling.

First, they say, reduced glacial ice cover and loss of ice shelves in Antarctica could have limited formation of cold bottom water masses that flow into the North Pacific Ocean and upwell to the surface, resulting in warmer surface waters, higher temperatures and increased precipitation on land.

Alternatively, disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may have led to significant global sea level rise and allowed more warm surface water to reach the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Strait.

Lake E's past, say the researchers, could be the key to our global climate future.

The El'gygytgyn Drilling Project also was funded by the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP), the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research, Alfred Wegener Institute, GeoForschungsZentrum-Potsdam, the Russian Academy of Sciences Far East Branch, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, and the Austrian Ministry for Science and Research.

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The Future Of The Forecast

With the Atlantic hurricane season officially beginning this month, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) is pursuing a number of projects to help Navy forecasters and meteorologists around the world predict storms better.

“Weather is one of the most significant factors affecting naval operations at sea,” said Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder. “ONR-funded research in weather prediction is improving the Navy’s forecasting capability and accuracy for any location around the world where our sailors and Marines are conducting missions.”

ONR’s efforts in funding ocean research are yielding enhanced weather and ocean prediction models that help Navy leaders understand how to route ships around the globe to avoid storms, reduce fuel consumption, avoid Arctic ice flows and promote safety at sea.

 Video provided by the Office of Naval Research

At the Fleet Weather Center in Norfolk, Va., Navy meteorologists depend on ONR-developed weather models and tools to provide timely, comprehensive and tactically-relevant products and services to support Fleet training and operations.

“We use real-time sensing data, observations from ships and combine that with modeling outputs to try and get as far ahead of the bad weather as possible,” said Commander Adam Newton, Operations Officer. “This information improves safety at sea and can give the Fleet a real warfighting advantage.”

While the Navy forecasters focus on supporting Fleet operations around the world, ONR often partners with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) because the same data and weather models that Navy forecasters use also help NOAA to provide accurate weather prediction and storm warnings across the country.

“There is a concerted effort to link various atmospheric and oceanic models together to attain more accurate weather forecasts,” said Dan Eleuterio, an ONR program officer. Eleuterio is working on a new computer model called the Tropical Cyclone Coupled Ocean/Atmospheric Mesoscale Prediction System, or TC-COAMPS, which allows scientists to forecast storms’ track and strength in real time at high resolution.

It was the first dynamic model to demonstrate better skill than statistical approaches at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center, and is one of several Navy and NOAA models being evaluated by the National Weather Service’s Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program.

“Up until now, predicting the intensity of storms was done with statistical-dynamical models,” said Eleuterio. “What that means is that forecasters would look at several decades of observed data and they would simply say that if a storm is in this place this season, it is most likely going to get stronger or weaker or change. It wasn’t an actual prediction, and TC-COAMPS will change that as a next-generation weather prediction model.”

ONR researchers work with underwater autonomous vehicles, ocean gliders and other sensors to collect information about how much the ocean environment drives global weather patterns. That data helps scientists improve mathematical equations for computer models that predict weather, ocean, sea, and even Arctic ice conditions.

The Navy has a long history of conducting missions in the Arctic for research and military purposes, and in 2009 published the Navy Arctic Roadmap to help ensure naval readiness and capability and promote maritime security in the Arctic region. Developed by the Navy’s Task Force Climate Change, the plan includes increasing operational experience, promoting cooperative partnerships and improving environmental understanding.

“The Arctic ice flows are retreating, and that has strategic implications for our country and naval operations in that region of the world as sea lanes open for shipping,” said Rear Adm. David Titley, director of the Navy’s Task Force Climate Change. “ONR research is helping us understand the Arctic environment, which helps us predict conditions and design future Navy ships better suited for that tough mission.”

Tracking the sea ice cover is the responsibility of the National Ice Center (NIC), a multi-agency organization operated by the Navy, NOAA and the United States Coast Guard in Suitland, Md. “Weather modeling is really key to better understanding and forecasting of changing ice conditions in the Arctic,” said Pablo Clemente-Colón, NIC’s chief scientist.

In the future, ONR researchers hope to combine multiple weather prediction models to create a comprehensive coupled global model that will greatly extend prediction capability, accuracy and our understanding of the world’s environment.

Story provided by the Office of Naval Research.

NSF Partners With U.S. and International Agencies to Foster Research on Sustainability in the Arctic

Cohesive approach is seen as key to achieving resiliency in the shared environment of the international Arctic

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Polar Programs leadership announced a partnership with several federal agencies and a consortium of French science agencies to foster research related to the sustainability of human, built, and environmental systems in the Arctic.

The Arctic Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (ArcSEES) solicitation was developed as part of the Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) portfolio by NSF in collaboration with several U.S. and international agencies, including the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), which represents a consortium of French scientific agencies. These partnerships will bring a broad range of expertise to bear on pressing research questions in Arctic sustainability and will underscore the importance of a cohesive approach to achieving resiliency in the shared environment of the international Arctic.

"The rapidity of environmental change in the Arctic provides a dynamic backdrop against which researchers can test sustainability science theories, engineering, and models where results have immediate use," said Erica Key, Arctic Observing Network Program Director in NSF's Office of Polar Programs (OPP).

"NSF staff, led by Dr. Key, have worked long and hard to bring basic research and regulatory agencies together in sponsoring this ArcSEES competition," said Kelly Falkner, acting director of OPP. "The complex problems presented by a rapidly changing Arctic demand such new approaches to research in order to provide vital information to stakeholders and communities both within and outside of the Arctic."

"The Department of the Interior is very excited about the possibility of funding additional research related to the Arctic through this historic partnership, which includes not only BOEM but also the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service," said David J. Hayes, deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Interior. "BOEM is one of many federal agencies with a role in making decisions about offshore energy development in the Arctic. Given the unknowns of the Arctic environment, continuous research to develop the best science is central to making decisions. This knowledge is integrated across several disciplines and a number of considerations that affect the economy, safety, protecting the environment, and facilitating shared use of limited resources."

Interest and investment in the sustainability of the Arctic extends well south of the Arctic Circle. The National Institute for Earth Sciences and Astronomy (INSU) at CNRS, which is mandated to coordinate the French research in the Arctic, is encouraged that ArcSEES will allow a stronger partnership between French and U.S. scientists engaged in this particular field.

ArcSEES is a multi-year, interdisciplinary program that encourages research into the resilience of the natural, built, and living Arctic systems. The program also welcomes the development of practical, sustainable solutions in collaboration with northern communities affected by rapid environmental changes, shifts in their ways of life, coupled with economic potential associated with natural resource development. These challenges and opportunities for co-managing a sustainable future have global relevance, and approaches developed to adapt or mitigate these changes could have much broader influence.

This initial round of ArcSEES grants will focus on four key thematic areas: the natural and living environment; the built environment; natural-resource development, and governance. A longer than usual proposal window has been granted to allow interdisciplinary groups to form around these themes and develop proposal ideas with communities, industry, and collaborating agency scientists.

Proposals will be accepted until September 14, 2012.  Pending availability of funds, up to $12 million USD will be available for proposals responding to this solicitation. NSF anticipates making five to 15 awards as standard or continuing grants. The number of awards and average award size and duration are subject to the availability of funds. Meritorious proposals may be funded by one or more agencies at the option of the agencies, not the proposer.

Two webinars are currently planned to discuss ArcSEES: one to be held by the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy on June 6th at 2 p.m. ET and another by EPA's Region 10 Tribal Trust and Assistance Unit in conjunction with the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals at Northern Arizona University on June 20th at 1 p.m. ET. Additional information on the solicitation is also available online.

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