ARCSS Program | Co-oP Concept Paper Submissions By Author

Thomas Douglas

Response: Arctic TRACE: Tracking Routes of Atmospheric Components in the Environment

Response: Atmosphere, environmental tracers, food webs

Response: Thomas A. Douglas (CRREL Alaska) Thomas.A.Douglas@erdc.usace.army.mil
Bill Simpson (University of Alaska Fairbanks) ffwrs@uaf.edu
Jesse Ford (Oregon State University) jesse.ford@oregonstate.edu

Response: The overarching question for this community of practice is the following:
How will the deposition of atmospheric chemical components to the Arctic respond to changing climates as well as fluxes of emissions and particulates to the Arctic atmosphere from lower latitudes?

The following four questions further focus the main objective:
1) What controls deposition rates of atmospheric contaminants to arctic sea ice, snow, vegetation, soils, and freshwater and marine environments?

2. How would changes in the fluxes of chemical species from lower latitudes affect interactions between the atmosphere and Arctic ecosystems?

3. How would fluxes and controls in the current system respond to a warming arctic?

4. Are there natural processes that ÒcleanÓ the Arctic system or otherwise armor it against contaminant uptake?

Response: Atmospheric contaminants follow complex routes to the Arctic before they are deposited onto ecosystem receptors and undergo biological transformation and uptake. Atmospheric processes that promote deposition are wide ranging and are often unique to each contaminant. Processes include photochemical reactions, active halogen chemistry, and aerosol surface heterogeneous chemistry to name a few. Many of the chemical components entering the Arctic terrestrial regime biomagnify in foodwebs after they are deposited to sea ice, snow, water, vegetation or soils. Native peoples and predators at high trophic levels are thus at risk for incorporating contaminants into their diet at many times the concentration initially deposited onto the landscape.

Arctic ecosystems are unique because of the dramatic seasonal variations in sunlight, temperature, moisture content and biological activity. Ongoing environmental change in the Arctic will likely modify surface temperature, sea ice extent, and precipitation. These changes may have a marked effect on fluxes of atmospheric chemical components both to and within the Arctic, but the potential responses of Arctic systems to these changes is not well understood. In addition, the emission rates of many chemical components that migrate to the Arctic are likely to increase in the future, especially from major sources in Asia and Western Europe. The reaction of the Arctic system to a combination of warming and changing atmospheric inputs is unknown.

Addressing the scientific questions given above will require multidisciplinary investigations to formulate a system-level understanding of how the Arctic receives, takes up, transforms, and stores atmospheric chemicals. A multi-chemical species approach is particularly illuminating because each chemical component has a different atmospheric chemistry, depositional regime, soil storage capacity and biological uptake regime. By tracking the deposition and storage pathways of selected chemical components in the Arctic system we can learn more about primary system processes and their responses to system changes.

Response: Atmospheric chemists, meteorologists; hydrologists, geomorphologists and geochemists; snow and sea ice physical scientists; ecologists; microbiologists; fisheries and wildlife biologists; systems level modelers; social scientists; science educators; Native and Village Tribal leaders; local educators.

Response: Less than 30, more than 10

Response: More than 30

Response: Microbiologists, systems level modelers, ecologists, meteorologists

Response: Online Bulletin Board
Shared electronic workspace (wiki)
Electronic email list

Response: Assistance in offering a face-to-face workshop which is a future goal