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(3)
the Arctic Ocean Variability Project designed to assess the variability of the
circulation and density structure of the Arctic Ocean; and
(4)
the Historical Arctic Ocean Climate Database Project aimed to establish a uni-
versally available digital hydrographic database for the Arctic Ocean for analysis
of climate-related processes and variability, and to provide a data set suitable for
initialization and veri
cation of arctic climate and circulation models.
The ACSYS sea ice program includes three main components:
(1) establishing an Arctic Basin-wide sea ice climatology database;
(2) monitoring the export of sea ice through the Fram Strait; and
(3) arctic sea ice processes studies.
One of the main tasks of the ACSYS arctic sea ice program is to establish a
climatology of ice thickness and ice velocity. Such data will be supplied by the
WCRP Arctic Ice Thickness Project, the International Arctic Buoy Program, sonar
pro
ling from naval submarines and unmanned vehicles, airborne oceanographic
lidars, and polar satellites carrying appropriate instruments.
The arctic atmosphere provides the dynamic and thermodynamic forcing of the
Arctic Ocean circulation and sea ice. Key directions of research include problems
such as: cloud-radiation interaction, air-sea interaction in the presence of ice cover
(impacts of polynyas and leads are of special interest), arctic haze, etc.
Primary ACSYS efforts within the project of the Hydrological Cycles in the
arctic region are aimed at:
(1)
the documentation and inter-comparison of solid precipitation measurement
procedures used in high latitudes; and
(2)
the development of methodologies for determining areal (regional) distribu-
tions of precipitation from station data.
There are two relevant data-archiving efforts: Arctic Precipitation Data Archive
(APDA) and Arctic Run-off Data Base (ARDB).
The principal purpose of the ACSYS modeling program is simulations of cli-
mate variations in polar regions which arise from the interaction between atmo-
sphere, sea ice and ocean.
Apart from the ACSYS project described above, a number of new research
programs have been developed, such as the Study of Environmental Arctic Change
(SEARCH), which is an interdisciplinary, multi-scale program dedicated to
understanding the complex interrelated changes that have been observed in the
Arctic environment in the past few decades (SEARCH 2001a, b). SEARCH is
envisioned as a long-term effort of observations, modeling, process studies, and
applications with emphasis on
five major thematic areas:
human society;
marine/terrestrial biosphere;
atmosphere and cryosphere;
ocean, and
integrated projects/models/assessment.
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