NOAA SEARCH Element 6: Arctic Change Detection

PI: Jim Overland
PI: Nancy Soreide
PI: Florence Fetterer
Institution: NOAA PMEL

Abstract
A major task outlined in the SEARCH Science Plan is to determine how current and retrospective observations can be best used and enhanced to understand and anticipate the course of the ongoing changes in the Arctic. We propose to address the highest priority identified in the SEARCH Implementation Plan, specifically, to understand the key characteristics of the multivariate change in the Arctic in space, time and persistence. A SEARCH workshop was held in November 2001 to address existing opportunities in atmospheric, terrestrial and sea ice observations. A conclusion in the final workshop report is that, while many ongoing observations exist, there is no cohesion among various Arctic disciplines and data types to form a complete observational set of Arctic change; further, present data are vastly underutilized in understanding multivariate pan-Arctic change.
There is a need for high knowledge return on existing and future data, and the capability to supply this information to non-specialists and interdisciplinary researchers. This is a challenging task, as it seeks to include operational weather and climate data rather than relying on a focused experimental design such as SHEBA, it is multidisciplinary, and its goal is knowledge extraction, a task beyond development of data archives, or even data accessibility. Development of an Arctic Change Detection protocol is a necessary SEARCH startup activity.

While many SEARCH activities speak to documenting Arctic climate processes, our project will assume a larger role of providing the Global Change and broader communities with a clear understanding of the complex changes that are occurring in the Arctic. Communicating climate change is a difficult process (Tickell, 2002). An example is the protracted discussions over the IPCC Report (Cicerone et al, 2001). NOAA’s new role as a leader of the U.S. Climate Program makes this function all the more necessary as NOAA has an explicit responsibility for communicating scientifically validated Arctic status and change information.

There is some recent help in this process. The field of “Data Mining” has now been extended to “Knowledge Discovery” which recognizes the important step of consolidating information into knowledge and communicating the results (Klosgen and Zytkow, 2002). Certain guidelines for communicating climate change detection and ecological indicators to decision makers and the public are being articulated (Risbey et al, 2000; Schiller et al, 2001). Of particular importance is the issue of uncertainty. Methods for the rational use of environmental indices is also developing rapidly (Keyantosh and Dracup, 2002; Link 2002).

A broad review of recent changes in the Arctic has been accomplished (Serreze et al, 2000, Overland, et al, in review). Of importance now is a reduction of this information to a set of several key indicators of Arctic change and to relate the magnitude, location and causes of current changes (the previous 30 years) to extremes in earlier historical and proxy records.