Abstracts
SEARCH Open Science Meeting
October 27, 2003
Seattle, Washington, USA
SEARCH Implementation: What is Being Done and Where Are the Gaps?
James Morison1
1University of Washington, 1013 NE 40th Street, Seattle, WA, 98105-6698, USA, Phone 206-543-1394, Fax 206-616-3142, morison@apl.washington.edu
The Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) has been conceived as a broad, interdisciplinary, multiscale program of long-term observations (including paleo and historical), analysis, and modeling with a core aim of understanding the complex of significant, interrelated, pan-Arctic changes that has occurred in recent decades (Unaami). This complex of changes is affecting every part of the Arctic environment and is having repercussions on society.
The SEARCH Science Steering Committee (SSC), with support of the SEARCH Interagency Working Group (IWG), has the developed the SEARCH Implementation Strategy Revision 1, now available at http://psc.apl.washington.edu/search/index.html. It is meant to provide a more complete and specific strategy than provided in the SEARCH Science Plan. Community input has been sought through a number of workshops and community presentations. It is meant to be a living document that changes as we gain a greater understanding and improve our methods.
The Strategy includes a detailed list of activities required to address the SEARCH goals. The activities are grouped into eight activity areas:
- Arctic System Reanalysis (ASR) will assimilate data into models of various components of the Arctic system to produce optimum estimates of key variables.
- Detecting and Quantifying Unaami (DQU) and Related Modes of Variability will use paleoclimate, historical, and archeological records as well as more recent observations to better define the scope of Unaami and its relation to other decadal modes of variability.
- Social and Economic Interactions (SEI) will examine the interactions of the physical and biological elements of Unaami with social and economic systems.
- Large-scale Atmospheric Observatories (LAO) will make large-scale atmospheric observations and includes the use of several large land-based stations around the Arctic.
- Distributed Marine Observatories (DMO) will make large-scale atmospheric (surface), oceanographic, sea ice and ecosystem observations in the marine environment.
- Distributed Terrestrial Observatories (DTO) will make large-scale atmospheric (surface), hydrological, glaciological, and ecosystem observations in the terrestrial environment.
- Linkages and Global Coupling (LGC) will use modeling and analysis to elucidate the connections between Unaami and global climate and the connections within the Arctic system as they pertain to Unaami.
- Social Response (SOR) will research social and economic adaptation to climate change in the past and apply research on Unaami to economic and social concerns in the future.
Given the decline of several historically important observing systems, high priority should be given to continuing existing observational records while expanding to achieve spatial and temporal coverage consistent with the strategy. While it is recognized that new technology will improve our observational capability, the observational parts of the strategy (e.g., DQU, LAO, DMO, DTO) are designed to rely on the use of existing methods in a systematic way with incremental improvement rather than requiring technical breakthroughs or unusual infrastructure.
The Arctic System Reanalysis is meant to combine observations and modeling to produce optimum estimates of important, but difficult to measure environmental variables such as precipitation minus evaporation or ice thickness distribution. This will involve applying data assimilation methods to parts of the Arctic system where they have not been applied before. The immediate priorities for Detecting and Quantifying Unaami and Social and Economic Interactions will be to determine more clearly the scope of Unaami. The Linkages and Global Coupling activity area will examine two key hypotheses of SEARCH, that Unaami is related to global climate and that feedbacks within the Arctic System are important to Unaami. To test these hypotheses, LGC will undertake analysis and modeling aimed at the various linkages within the Arctic System and with global climate, areas that will build on ongoing work. The Social Response activity area will research social and economic adaptation to climate change in the past and apply research on Unaami to economic and social concerns in the future. To do this, connections with communities and industries will be gained by establishing a system of coordinated Local and Traditional Knowledge Co-ops and Community Data Networks. Generally, the SEARCH activities should include many existing activities and add to these to provide our descendents with the understanding and long-term records they will need to deal with a changing environment.
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