ARCSS Program | Co-oP Concept Paper Submissions by Question

Question 4

Lilian Na'ia Alessa
How does the hydrological cycle link components of the Arctic System at local scales?

Which components are attractors and modifiers in the system?

Which attractors are changing rapidly and which are changing slowly?

With a focus on the hydrological cycle relevant to human scales:
a. does synthesis indiiicate that there may exist greater degrees of complexity in arctic processes than previously thought and
b. what insight can we gain into emergent patterns/processes and guidelines for them?

Thomas Douglas
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?

Ivan Eyefor Watts
1) What are the interactions between net energy transports from lower latitudes, the extreme seasonality of radiative forcing and heat exchanges between the atmosphere, land surface and ocean that shape the observed mean state of the Arctic climate system and its variability on seasonal, inter-annual and decadal scales?

2) How are recent changes in the Arctic system, including reductions in sea ice cover, rising surface air temperatures, shrubbification and permafrost warming reflected in and driven by variability in large-scale and regional energy budgets?

3) What are the strengths and directions of system feedbacks involving the energy budget, and what do these portend for the future state of the Arctic system?

Kenneth Hinkel
This project addresses four major scientific themes that include: assessing the current status of thaw lakes and basins; identifying processes associated with lake formation, expansion and drainage; integrating indigenous knowledge to enhance standard scientific methods; and estimating carbon pools in organic-rich reservoirs. The study area includes northern Alaska, northwestern Canada, and broad reaches of Siberia. Specifically:

(1) How many thaw lakes, ponds and associated drained thaw lake basins (DTLBs) exist? What are their areal extent and morphometric (shape, orientation) characteristics, and do these parameters change over space and across time scales ranging from the multi-decadal to the multi-millennial?

(2) What are the dominant structural and functional processes associated with thaw lake expansion, drainage and land cover change? How can we discriminate the effects of local processes from regional forcing? How are lake dynamics affected by local relief, regional elevation gradients, ground ice content, surficial materials, vegetation, landscape age, geomorphic history and human activity? How have lake dynamics and biota responded to climate change in the past, and how they might respond to climate amelioration?

(3) To what degree can we utilize indigenous knowledge (IK) to identify and verify mechanisms of lake expansion and drainage? Can oral histories be used to document changes in the landscape? What impact might widespread landscape change have on traditional cultures?

(4) How much soil organic carbon is currently sequestered in DTLBs and peatlands, and how susceptible is the carbon to mobilization given soil warming?

Andrea Lloyd
We have resolved to organize into a research community with a focus on the following three fundamental questions related to earth surface change in the Arctic.
1. What are the rates and trajectories of earth surface change, and how do feedbacks between the ocean and land surface affect those rates/trajectories (i.e., where do the synergies and antagonisms lie)?
2. What are the relative roles of, and interactions among, climate and human activities in driving collective earth surface change on land and in the ocean?
3. How might the impacts of simultaneous land and ocean surface change interact with other forces of global change to affect both human populations and resource development in the Arctic?

Patricia Matrai
OASIS mission: Determine the importance of OASIS chemical, physical and biological exchange processes on tropospheric chemistry, the cryosphere, and the marine environment, and their feedback mechanisms in the context of a changing climate.
The five overarching scientific questions are:

-What is the nature of feedback loops between OASIS exchange processes and global climate change?
-What are the fundamental physical, chemical, and biologically-mediated chemical exchange processes involving halogens, DMS, NOx, O3, VOCs, POPs, Hg, S-constituents, particulate matter, and CO2 in the Polar regions?
-What is the relationship of OASIS exchange processes with the marine cryosphere (ice/snow) and the underlying Polar Ocean?
-What is the relationship of OASIS exchange processes with the chemistry, physics and biology of airborne gases, aerosol particles and cloud/snow formation?
-Environmental pollution: what is the impact on, and by, OASIS exchange and the role of long term changes?

Answering these questions will require an integrated multidisciplinary effort, which includes both an experimental phase focused on field and laboratory work, and a closely coupled modeling exercise. A Science Plan was prepared following a 1st workshop held in 2002 that has been extensively vetted by the international science community involved in studies of air-surface chemical exchange in the Arctic. A draft Implementation Plan was prepared before, during and after a 2nd open community workshop held in 2005. Both living documents form the basis of the OASIS Co-oP now being proposed to ARCSS and available at the OASIS web site (www.OASIShome.net).

Gifford Miller
Two major centers of frequent explosive volcanism are found in the Arctic; along the subduction zone of the Aleutian trench and the Iceland hot spot. Both regions leave widespread, often geochemically diagnostic tephra across much of the Arctic. Explosive volcanism impacts Arctic climate and biota; the extensive tephra may allow synchronization of paleoclimate archives (ice cores, and lake and marine sediment). Precise synchronization provides one of the few tools to evaluate leads and lags between different components of the climate system. Explosive volcanism in the Arctic was more frequent in the early Holocene than in the last millennium, but the potential climate impacts have not been evaluated.
We propose a Community of Practice to focus on the impacts of volcanism on the Arctic system, and to better utilize the time synchronization offered by diagnostic tephra from both Alaskan and Icelandic sources.

Atmospheric component: How did frequent early Holocene explosive volcanism in the North Atlantic impact the climate system? Can diagnostic tephra in key paleoclimate archives be used to synchronize these records so that the leads and lags between ocean, atmosphere and solar forcing can be evaluated?

Limnological component: Does dusting lakes with tephra effect of nutrient loading and lead to a biotic response? Laminated sediment may allow a precise evaluation of these effects.

Geomorphology and fire-history component: Is there a link between eruptions and fires or changes in watershed and lake-sedimentation processes.

Marine circulation component: Can diagnostic tephras in marine sediment be used to evaluate the 14C reservoir age of surface waters through the Holocene for the high-northern latitudes? The spatial/temporal pattern of reservoir age provides first-order information on past changes in ocean circulation.