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October 27, 2003
Seattle, Washington, USA

PARCS Data Management in Support of Reconstructions of Arctic Environmental Change

Mathieu Duvall^1
1Geology / Parcs Data Coordinator, Bates College, Lewiston, ME, 04240, USA, Phone 207-753-6945, Fax 207-786-8334, mduvall@bates.edu

Central to the PARCS program is to understand Arctic environmental change over time periods longer than the historical record (PARCS, 1999, Imperative One). For PARCS, the Data Management Officer (DMO) plays a key role in this process by helping to integrate individual efforts (both modern and proxy) in order to generate a spatial and temporal picture of environmental change. The DMO supports these efforts and adds value to these results by preserving them, and providing supplemental information via a public data archive.

As PARCS research extends beyond the historical record we must be highly critical of the fidelity and chronology of our primary data. As an example, when we constructed the Paleoenvironmental Atlas of Beringia (www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/parcs/atlas) the DMO worked closely with the community doing quality control to create the primary data archive thereby ensuring a solid foundation for synthetic efforts based on these data.

The PARCS DMO must have a base level understanding of the primary data so s/he can facilitate its calibration. When dealing with multiple proxy indicators such as in the current PARCS project to reconstruct the Holocene Thermal Maximum, multiple calibrations that reconstruct compatible aspects of the environment are needed. In some cases these calibrations are done by the DMO, in other cases, the DMO assembles them into the data archive.

Although individual proxy reconstructions provide a great deal of information about the Arctic environment, when these reconstructions are viewed as a network of sites in time and space, their value increases. The third focus of the DMO is to help PARCS assemble this network. For the current PARCS work with Arctic temperature (see Hughen et al. talk, this meeting), the DMO worked closely with the working group to gather data from the community and build the site network.

The final focus of the DMO is to present the reconstructions. PARCS’ philosophy is to present the reconstructions in concert with the primary data and the individual site interpretations. Additionally, we describe the methods used during interpretation and analysis. The result is an integrated resource where one can view our science, and also access data of interest. It is in this area that our collaboration with the World Data Center – A (WDC-A) for Paleoclimatology in Boulder, CO USA has value. A current development project between PARCS and the WDC-A (due out in July 2004) will support this kind of data resource.

PARCS, 1999: The Arctic Paleosciences in the Context of Global Change Research – PARCS, Paleoenvironmental Arctic Sciences. ESH Secretariat, AGU, Washington, D.C.

Abstract Categories: Science Management, Coordination, and Resources

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