Arctic Skies
NOAA Scientists Help Build Global Arctic Science Network

Katy Human
NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research

February 2, 2009 — Climate observatories at Barrow, Alaska and Summit, Greenland both lie between 71° and 73° North, a few hundred miles above the Arctic Circle — but the sites survey very different terrain.

At NOAA’s Barrow Observatory in Alaska, 36 feet above sea level, winds sweep across the tundra from the ocean, just two miles away. Summit Observatory in Greenland — run by the National Science Foundation and a Danish commission — sits in the middle of a massive ice sheet at more than 10,000 feet altitude, far from the sea.

Climate change processes in the vast Arctic cannot be understood with data collected from just weather stations, said Taneil Uttal of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, in Boulder, Colo. So a few years ago, she began using the organizational mechanisms provided by the International Polar Year Committee to contact colleagues around the world and coordinate activities at the few observatory sites in the Arctic. The result is the International Arctic Systems for Observing the Atmosphere, which now includes 10 observatories, from Barrow and Summit to Tiksi, Russia and Abisko, Sweden. NOAA helps with instruments, staff, or budget contributions at all sites.

“We are filling data gaps,” said Uttal, who is the network’s “activity leader.”

In much of the Arctic, temperatures are rising far faster than models predicted, and ice and permafrost are thawing.

“We need better science on the Arctic atmosphere and how it interacts with the ocean and cryosphere [frozen portions of the Earth’s surface] to understand the ‘why’ behind rising temperatures and other trends,” Uttal said. “What’s the role of greenhouse gases? Aerosol loads? Cloud properties?”

At last December’s American Geophysical Union meeting, about two dozen scientists from around the world presented talks and posters based on measurements from IASOA observatories. The AGU sessions — a first for IASOA — exemplified the data-sharing and collaborations that are the network’s hallmarks, said ESRL’s Lisa Darby, who is also an IASOA program manager.

One key question for many Arctic scientists is whether or when the region’s warming permafrost will increase releases of the greenhouse gas methane, contributing to a feedback cycle of further warming and melt. The IASOA observatories will eventually be able to help scientists detect and understand major changes in methane flux, said ESRL researcher Ed Dlugokencky.

John Calder, director of NOAA’s Arctic Research Office, which funds IASOA, said the global network is designed to let scientists study Arctic changes in greater detail — a necessity for improving climate models and predictions.

“Barrow Observatory is very nice, but it cannot answer every question we need answered,” Calder said. “We want to know, for example, why temperatures at Tiksi are rising faster than anywhere else. We want to get in there and understand why.”

Each IASOA site supports a suite of sophisticated instruments, some that measure ozone and others that track surface radiation or cloud physics. In some cases, NOAA has helped other countries obtain, install, or operate instruments, Uttal said.

ESRL recently sent a cloud radar system to Finland, for example. In the past, such exchanges were often difficult and unpredictable, especially when political relationships between two countries were tense. Today, Uttal works openly with international colleagues, guided by intergovernmental agreements on scientific cooperation.

In Tiksi, Russia, the latest site in the IASOA network, ESRL teams are working with Russian colleagues to upgrade a dated, but venerable research station with funding from the National Science Foundation, NOAA, the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring, and the local government of Yakutia. With NSF funding, NOAA technical guidance, and Russian construction teams, two new research buildings are now taking shape at Tiksi. Instruments from U.S. agencies and universities are expected to be installed beginning in the spring of 2009.