There is broad agreement in the scientific community that the solid earth beneath the Arctic Ocean basin contains answers to major unsolved problems in the earth sciences and that many of these pertain to questions that are of global scientific significance or pressing societal concern. Recent political and technological developments, including the end of the Cold War and the prospective availability of nuclear submarines and powerful icebreakers for use as research platforms, appear to provide remedies for formidable obstacles of communication and access in harsh environmental conditions. This book recommends that the Arctic Ocean basin and its margins be the focus of a research program in three stages of study based on selected criteria: geologic framework and tectonic evolution, the sedimentary record and environmental history, and arctic geologic processes and environmental indicators.
Once ice-bound, difficult to access, and largely ignored by the rest of the world, the Arctic is now front and center in the midst of many important questions facing the world today. Our daily weather, what we eat, and coastal flooding are all interconnected with the future of the Arctic. The year 2012 was an astounding year for Arctic change. The summer sea ice volume smashed previous records, losing approximately 75 percent of its value since 1980 and half of its areal coverage. Multiple records were also broken when 97 percent of Greenland's surface experienced melt conditions in 2012, the largest melt extent in the satellite era. Receding ice caps in Arctic Canada are now exposing land surfaces that have been continuously ice covered for more than 40,000 years. What happens in the Arctic has far-reaching implications around the world. Loss of snow and ice exacerbates climate change and is the largest contributor to expected global sea level rise during the next century. Ten percent of the world's fish catches comes from Arctic and sub-Arctic waters. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated that up to 13 percent of the world's remaining oil reserves are in the Arctic. The geologic history of the Arctic may hold vital clues about massive volcanic eruptions and the consequent release of massive amount of coal fly ash that is thought to have caused mass extinctions in the distant past. How will these changes affect the rest of Earth? What research should we invest in to best understand this previously hidden land, manage impacts of change on Arctic communities, and cooperate with researchers from other nations? The Arctic in the Anthropocene reviews research questions previously identified by Arctic researchers, and then highlights the new questions that have emerged in the wake of and expectation of further rapid Arctic change, as well as new capabilities to address them. This report is meant to guide future directions in U.S. Arctic research so that research is targeted on critical scientific and societal questions and conducted as effectively as possible. The Arctic in the Anthropocene identifies both a disciplinary and a cross-cutting research strategy for the next 10 to 20 years, and evaluates infrastructure needs and collaboration opportunities. The climate, biology, and society in the Arctic are changing in rapid, complex, and interactive ways. Understanding the Arctic system has never been more critical; thus, Arctic research has never been more important. This report will be a resource for institutions, funders, policy makers, and students. Written in an engaging style, The Arctic in the Anthropocene paints a picture of one of the last unknown places on this planet, and communicates the excitement and importance of the discoveries and challenges that lie ahead.
Recent well documented reductions in the thickness and extent of Arctic sea ice cover, which can be linked to the warming climate, are affecting the global climate system and are also affecting the global economic system as marine access to the Arctic region and natural resource development increase. Satellite data show that during each of the past six summers, sea ice cover has shrunk to its smallest in three decades. The composition of the ice is also changing, now containing a higher fraction of thin first-year ice instead of thicker multi-year ice. Understanding and projecting future sea ice conditions is important to a growing number of stakeholders, including local populations, natural resource industries, fishing communities, commercial shippers, marine tourism operators, national security organizations, regulatory agencies, and the scientific research community. However, gaps in understanding the interactions between Arctic sea ice, oceans, and the atmosphere, along with an increasing rate of change in the nature and quantity of sea ice, is hampering accurate predictions. Although modeling has steadily improved, projections by every major modeling group failed to predict the record breaking drop in summer sea ice extent in September 2012. Establishing sustained communication between the user, modeling, and observation communities could help reveal gaps in understanding, help balance the needs and expectations of different stakeholders, and ensure that resources are allocated to address the most pressing sea ice data needs. Seasonal-to-Decadal Predictions of Arctic Sea Ice: Challenges and Strategies explores these topics.
During the 1990s, a government program brought together environmental scientists and members of the intelligence community to consider how classified assets and data could be applied to further the understanding of environmental change. As part of the Medea program, collection of overhead classified imagery of sea ice at four sites around the Arctic basin was initiated in 1999, and two additional sites were added in 2005. Collection of images during the summer months at these six locations has continued until the present day. Several hundred unclassified images with a nominal resolution of 1 meter have been derived from the classified images collected at the 6 Arctic sites. To assist in the process of making the unclassified derived imagery more widely useful, the National Research Council reviewed the derived images and considered their potential uses for scientific research. In this book, we explore the importance of sea ice in the Arctic and illustrate the types of information-often unique in its detail-that the derived images could contribute to the scientific discussion.
For the past three decades, it has been possible to measure the earth's static gravity from satellites. Such measurements have been used to address many important scientific problems, including the earth's internal structure, and geologically slow processes like mantle convection. In principle, it is possible to resolve the time-varying component of the gravity field by improving the accuracy of satellite gravity measurements. These temporal variations are caused by dynamic processes that change the mass distribution in the earth, oceans, and atmosphere. Acquisition of improved time-varying gravity data would open a new class of important scientific problems to analysis, including crustal motions associated with earthquakes and changes in groundwater levels, ice dynamics, sea-level changes, and atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. This book evaluates the potential for using satellite technologies to measure the time-varying component of the gravity field and assess the utility of these data for addressing problems of interest to the earth sciences, natural hazards, and resource communities.
There is broad agreement in the scientific community that the solid earth beneath the Arctic Ocean basin contains answers to major unsolved problems in the earth sciences and that many of these pertain to questions that are of global scientific significance or pressing societal concern. Recent political and technological developments, including the end of the Cold War and the prospective availability of nuclear submarines and powerful icebreakers for use as research platforms, appear to provide remedies for formidable obstacles of communication and access in harsh environmental conditions. This book recommends that the Arctic Ocean basin and its margins be the focus of a research program in three stages of study based on selected criteria: geologic framework and tectonic evolution, the sedimentary record and environmental history, and arctic geologic processes and environmental indicators.
The Arctic has been undergoing significant changes in recent years. Average temperatures are rising twice as fast as they are elsewhere in the world. The extent and thickness of sea ice is rapidly declining. Such changes may have an impact on atmospheric conditions outside the region. Several hypotheses for how Arctic warming may be influencing mid-latitude weather patterns have been proposed recently. For example, Arctic warming could lead to a weakened jet stream resulting in more persistent weather patterns in the mid-latitudes. Or Arctic sea ice loss could lead to an increase of snow on high-latitude land, which in turn impacts the jet stream resulting in cold Eurasian and North American winters. These and other potential connections between a warming Arctic and mid-latitude weather are the subject of active research. Linkages Between Arctic Warming and Mid-Latitude Weather Patterns is the summary of a workshop convened in September 2013 by the National Research Council to review our current understanding and to discuss research needed to better understand proposed linkages. A diverse array of experts examined linkages between a warming Arctic and mid-latitude weather patterns. The workshop included presentations from leading researchers representing a range of views on this topic. The workshop was organized to allow participants to take a global perspective and consider the influence of the Arctic in the context of forcing from other components of the climate system, such as changes in the tropics, ocean circulation, and mid-latitude sea surface temperature. This report discusses our current understanding of the mechanisms that link declines in Arctic sea ice cover, loss of high-latitude snow cover, changes in Arctic-region energy fluxes, atmospheric circulation patterns, and the occurrence of extreme weather events; possible implications of more severe loss of summer Arctic sea ice upon weather patterns at lower latitudes; major gaps in our understanding, and observational and/or modeling efforts that are needed to fill those gaps; and current opportunities and limitations for using Arctic sea ice predictions to assess the risk of temperature/precipitation anomalies and extreme weather events over northern continents.
The high latitudes of the Arctic and Antarctic, together with some mountainous areas with glaciers and long-lasting snow, are sometimes called the cryosphere-defined as that portion of the planet where water is perennially or seasonally frozen as sea ice, snow cover, permafrost, ice sheets, and glaciers. Variations in the extent and characteristics of surface ice and snow in the high latitudes are of fundamental importance to global climate because of the amount of the sun's radiation that is reflected from these often white surfaces. Thus, the cryosphere is an important frontier for scientists seeking to understand past climate events, current weather, and climate variability. Obtaining the data necessary for such research requires the capability to observe and measure a variety of characteristics and processes exhibited by major ice sheets and large-scale patterns of snow and sea ice extent, and much of these data are gathered using satellites. As part of its efforts to better support the researchers studying the cryosphere and climate, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)-using sophisticated satellite technology-measures a range of variables from atmospheric temperature, cloud properties, and aerosol concentration to ice sheet elevation, snow cover on land, and ocean salinity. These raw data are compiled and processed into products, or data sets, useful to scientists. These so-called "polar geophysical data sets" can then be studied and interpreted to answer questions related to atmosphere and climate, ice sheets, terrestrial systems, sea ice, ocean processes, and many other phenomena in the cryosphere. The goal of this report is to provide a brief review of the strategy, scope, and quality of existing polar geophysical data sets and help NASA find ways to make these products and future polar data sets more useful to researchers, especially those working on the global change questions that lie at the heart of NASA's Earth Science Enterprise.
As environmental problems move upward on the public agenda, our knowledge of the earth's systems and how to sustain the habitability of our world becomes more critical. This volume reports on the state of earth science and outlines a research agenda, with priorities keyed to the real-world challenges facing human society. The product of four years of development with input from more than 200 earth-science specialists, the volume offers a wealth of historical background and current information on: Plate tectonics, volcanism, and other heat-generated earth processes. Evolution of our global environment and of life itself, as revealed in the fossil record. Human exploitation of water, fossil fuels, and minerals. Interaction between human populations and the earth's surface, discussing the role we play in earth's systems and the dangers we face from natural hazards such as earthquakes and landslides. This volume offers a comprehensive look at how earth science is currently practiced and what should be done to train professionals and adequately equip them to find the answers necessary to manage more effectively the earth's systems. This well-organized and practical book will be of immediate interest to solid-earth scientists, researchers, and college and high school faculty, as well as policymakers in the environmental arena.
Seventy percent of our blue planet is covered by oceans. Although progress has been made in understanding the role of oceans in climate change, locating energy reserves, revealing new life forms, and describing the flow of carbon through these systems, it may be time to catapult our understanding to new levels by undertaking an interdisciplinary, international, global ocean exploration program. The interim report outlines the committee's vision for a future international global ocean exploration program; this vision will be fully described, together with detailed recommendations for technological needs and capabilities, funding levels, and management structures to ensure a productive and successful ocean exploration program.
The United States has enduring national and strategic interests in the polar regions, including citizens living above the Arctic circle and three year-round scientific stations in the Antarctic. Polar icebreaking ships are needed to access both regions. Over the past several decades, the U.S. government has supported a fleet of four icebreakersâ€"three multi-mission U.S. Coast Guard ships (the POLAR SEA, POLAR STAR, and HEALY) and the National Science Foundation's PALMER, which is dedicated solely to scientific research. Today, the POLAR STAR and the POLAR SEA are at the end of their service lives, and a lack of funds and no plans for an extension of the program has put U.S. icebreaking capability at risk. This report concludes that the United States should continue to support its interests in the Arctic and Antarctic for multiple missions, including maintaining leadership in polar science. The report recommends that the United States immediately program, budget, design, and construct two new polar icebreakers to be operated by the U.S. Coast Guard. The POLAR SEA should remain mission capable and the POLAR STAR should remain available for reactivation until the new polar icebreakers enter service. The U.S. Coast Guard should be provided sufficient operations and maintenance budget to support an increased, regular, and influential presence in the Arctic, with support from other agencies. The report also calls for a Presidential Decision Directive to clearly align agency responsibilities and budgetary authorities.
Natural and human-induced changes in Earth's interior, land surface, biosphere, atmosphere, and oceans affect all aspects of life. Understanding these changes requires a range of observations acquired from land-, sea-, air-, and space-based platforms. To assist NASA, NOAA, and USGS in developing these tools, the NRC was asked to carry out a "decadal strategy" survey of Earth science and applications from space that would develop the key scientific questions on which to focus Earth and environmental observations in the period 2005-2015 and beyond, and present a prioritized list of space programs, missions, and supporting activities to address these questions. This report presents a vision for the Earth science program; an analysis of the existing Earth Observing System and recommendations to help restore its capabilities; an assessment of and recommendations for new observations and missions for the next decade; an examination of and recommendations for effective application of those observations; and an analysis of how best to sustain that observation and applications system.
EarthScope is a major science initiative in the solid-earth sciences and has been described as "a new earth science initiative that will dramatically advance our physical understanding of the North American continent by exploring its three-dimensional structure through time". The initiative proposes to cover the United States with an array of instruments created to reveal how the continent was put together, how the continent is moving now, and what lies beneath the continent. The initiative is made of four components, three of which are funded by the Major Research Equipment program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and one of which is mostly associated with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In response to a request by the NSF, the National Research Council (NRC) established a committee to review the science objectives and implementation planning of the three NSF components, United States Seismic Array (USArray), the Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO), and the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD). The committee was charged with answered four specific questions: Is the scientific rationale for EarthScope sound, and are the scientific questions to be addressed of significant importance? Is there any additional component that should be added to the EarthScope initiative to ensure that it will achieve its objective of a vastly increased understanding of the structure, dynamics, and evolution of the continental crust of North America? Are the implementation and management plans for the three elements of EarthScope reviewed here appropriate to achieve their objectives? Have the appropriate partnerships required to maximize the scientific outcomes from EarthScope been identified in the planning documents? Review of EarthScope Integrated Science presents the committee's findings and recommendations. To reach its conclusions the committee reviewed extensive written material and listened to presentations by members of the EarthScope Working Group and other interested scientists. The recommendations encompass science questions, management, education and outreach, and partnerships. Overall the committee was impressed by the EarthScope initiative.
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