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pattern affecting snowmelt, Arctic-wide temperature trends, and water vapour over
the Arctic and its relationship to the atmospheric circulation and surface conditions.
One project deals with response of large birds to climate and sea-level change at
river deltas, and one studies the balance and recent volume changes of the McCall
Glacier in the Brooks Range.
Synthesis, integration and modeling studies are intended to foster linkages and
system-level understanding. Research on the past contemporary relationship to
humans to global climate change is thought to be critical to understanding the
consequences of global change in the Arctic.
There are a number of ARCSS data projects, including: LAII Flux Study Alaska
North Slope data sampler CD-ROM; OAII Northeast Water (NEW) polynya project
CD-ROM; Arctic solar and terrestrial radiation CD-ROM, etc.
A list of the OAII components includes the joint US/Japan cruise, the Western
Arctic Mooring project, and the Northeast Water Polynya project. Among other
OAII projects the most notable are the US/Canada Arctic Ocean Section and the
Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) project.
An outstanding effort has been accomplished in 1994 within the Canada/US
1994 Arctic Ocean Section, when the two icebreakers entered the ice in the northern
Chukchi Sea on 26 July 1994, reached the North Pole on 22 August, and left the ice
northwest of Spitsbergen on 30 August, completing thereby the
first crossing of the
Arctic Ocean by surface vessels. This voyage altered greatly our understanding of
biological productivity, the food web, ocean circulation and thermal structure, and
the role of clouds in the summer radiation balance, as well as the extent of con-
tamination and spreading pathways (especially related to radionuclides and chlo-
rinated organics), and the extent and effects of sediment transport by sea ice.
In connection with the SHEBA project,
s
Atmosphere Radiation Measurement (ARM) program indicated its intention to
develop a Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) facility on the North Slope of
Alaska. The principal focus of this program will be on atmospheric radiative
transport, especially as modi
the U.S. Department of Energy
'
ed by clouds (which impacts the growth and decay of
sea ice), as well as testing, validation, and comparison of radiation transfer models
in both the ice pack and arctic coastal environment.
A special place is occupied by the Russian-American Initiative on Shelf-Land
Environments in the Arctic (RAISE) with the principal goal of facilitating ship-
based research in the Russian Arctic (RAISE 2001). Earlier relevant land-based
research projects under the RAISE umbrella included studies of:
organic material and nutrient
fl
fluxes from Russian rivers;
seasonal
fl
flooding dynamics along rivers, and
reconstruction of late Pleistocene glacial and sea-level history on Wrangel
Island.
c topics in the near-shore waters of the Russian continental shelf
will include a broad range of studies: from the biogeochemical fate of organic
materials contributed to the Arctic Ocean by shoreline erosion and river runoff to
the social and biological impacts of changes in sea-ice distributions.
New scienti
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