Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
a European Space Agency satellite launched in April 2010, uses a radar altimeter
system to provide information on ice sea ice thickness and ice sheets. The earlier
CryoSat-1 satellite failed to reach orbit. A highly successful NASA mission called
GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment), launched in 2002, is making
detailed measurements of the of the earth's gravity field; one of its notable achieve-
ments is assessing changes in the mass balance of the earth's ice sheets through time
changes in the regional gravity field.
The growth in dedicated Arctic research by the United States and other coun-
tries has also helped to offset some of the data losses in Russia and Canada.
Starting in the early 1990s, the Arctic System Science (ARCSS) program of the
U.S National Science Foundation (NSF) has supported a series of focused projects.
These have included Land Atmosphere Ice Interactions (LAII); Ocean/Atmosphere/
Ice Interactions (OAII); Paleo-environmental Arctic Studies (PARCS); Human
Dimensions of the Arctic System (HARC); the Community-wide Hydrologic
Analysis and Modeling Program (CHAMP); Pan-Arctic Cycles, Transitions and
Sustainability (PACTS); and the Changing Seasonality in the Arctic System (CSAS).
ARCSS has funded large field efforts, such as the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic
Ocean (SHEBA) experiment in 1997-1998 in the Beaufort Sea. In 2000, a “North
Pole Environmental Observatory” program was initiated. Properties of the ocean
and ice, as well as meteorological and drift characteristics are being observed.
Major international efforts include the ASOF program, the Boreal Ecosystem-
Atmosphere Study (BOREAS) and CRYSYS (CRYosphere SYStem in Canada),
which developed capabilities to monitor and understand regional and large-scale vari-
ations in cryospheric variables of importance to Canada and to improve understand-
ing of the role of the cryosphere in the climate system. The World Climate Research
Programme (WCRP) has promoted international coordination of Arctic research
through the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX), the Arctic
Climate System Study (ACSYS), and its successor, the Climate and Cryosphere
(CliC) program. A major activity in 2007-2009 was the Third International Polar
Year (IPY) that involved sixty nations and more than 50,000 scientists, students,
educators, residents, and support staff. The Third IPY encompassed 228 projects,
more than half of them in the Arctic. Main areas of focus were polar ice sheet sci-
ence, sea ice vulnerability and connections to society, marine ecosystems, marine
carbon cycling and ocean acidification, polar atmospheric observations and lower
latitude impacts, and terrestrial earth systems and permafrost including carbon res-
ervoirs. A large Canadian IPY effort, the Circumpolar Flaw Lead System Study,
involved the research icebreaker CCGS Amundsen being frozen into a flaw lead.
In the late 1990s, NSF launched the Study of Environmental Arctic Change
(SEARCH). SEARCH subsequently found support from other U.S. agencies, and
had a European counterpart called SEARCH for DAMOCLES (Developing Arctic
Modeling and Observing Capabilities for Long-Term Environmental Studies),
which ended in 2010. The Arctic Observing Network (AON) is closely linked to
SEARCH and represented the major U.S. Arctic contribution to the Third IPY. Many
AON projects are still ongoing; a major challenge now being faced is designing and
