Witness the Arctic - Spring 2003, Volume 10 Number 1

1 continued on next page Published by the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States • 3535 College Road • Suite 101 • Fairbanks, AK 99709 Chronicles of the NSF Arctic Sciences Program Spring 2003, Volume 10 Number 1 ARCTIC Funded through the NSF Arctic System Science (ARCSS) Program and the Office of Naval Research, the Western Arctic Shelf-Basin Interactions (SBI) project began in 1999 (see Witness Autumn 2001). The goal of the SBI project is to investigate the production, transformation, and fate of carbon at the shelf-slope interface in the Arctic, both seasonally and interannually, as a prelude to understanding the impacts of a potential warming of the Arctic. A considerable body of evidence indicates that climate change will significantly impact the physical and biological linkages between the arctic shelves and adjacent ocean basins. Nutrient-rich Pacific water enters the region through Bering Strait and is modified as it transits over the Chukchi and Beaufort shelves and slopes to the Arctic Basin. Seasonal ice formation produces brine that is entrained in this northward flow and helps maintain the current ice cover in the Arctic. Any environmental change that reduces the extent and thickness of the sea ice in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas will coincidently influence hydrographic and ecosystem structure, both on regional and global scales. Research supported by SBI therefore focuses on the outer shelf, shelf break, and slope, where key processes control water mass exchange and biogeochemical cycles, SBI Project Completes Four Cruises in First Field Season by Jacqueline M. Grebmeier and where the greatest responses to climate changes are expected to occur. Phase I of SBI used retrospective research and analyses, opportunistic sampling studies, and modeling to prepare for Phase II fieldwork in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. SBI Phase II involves 40 principal and co-principal investigators on 14 integrated projects working in the Bering Strait region and over the outer shelf and slope of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas into the Arctic Basin from 2002 to 2006. SBI investigators recently completed four successful missions in their first year of fieldwork using three vessels (see map): • USCGC Healy for two intensive process cruises—one in spring (5 May–15 June) and one in summer (17 July–26 August), • RV Alpha Helix for a mooring cruise 20–29 June in Bering Strait, and • USCGC Polar Star for a mooring cruise 15 July–13 August in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. Each of the four cruises enlisted up to 39 scientists from 19 institutions in the U.S., Bermuda, Canada, and Europe in this interdisciplinary scientific endeavor, applying a broad array of physical, biogeochemical, and biological measurements. Process Cruises The SBI spring and summer process cruises involved a variety of studies, ranging from hydrographic measurements to biological studies of different trophic levels. Sampling techniques at the stations of the two process cruises (see map) included: • a CTD (conductivity-temperaturedepth)/rosette bottle system for physical Each of the two process cruises in 2002 sampled at 30–50 stations on the Chukchi and Beaufort shelves and along four main shelf-basin transect lines, including two lines from the Chukchi outer shelf to the Arctic Basin, one line from the head to the mouth of Barrow Canyon, and one line from the shelf to basin in the Beaufort Sea. Figure by Joint Office of Science Support. 2 3 Feature Article and hydrobiochemical measurements in the water column; • subsamples from multiple CTD/rosette bottle casts for primary production, bacterial respiration and production, chlorophyll content, nutrients, particulate carbon, inorganic carbon, carbon biomarkers, microzooplankton, and stableand radioisotopes; • various nets (vertical, bongo) for size fractions of micro-, macro-, and mesozooplankton for both population and experimental purposes; • benthic grabs and cores to collect fauna and sediment for population, community structure, food web, tracer chemistry, and metabolism studies; and • in-situ pumps to measure the activities of particle-reactive radionuclides. The spring cruise on the new icebreaker USCGC Healy (see page 14) was the first interdisciplinary research cruise to this region at this time of year. Scientists on both the spring and summer cruises found unusually low ice cover and high sediment content in the first-year ice. These sediments can accelerate melting of sea ice and impact light levels and nutrient content that influence algal primary production in the ice layers and underlying water. During the spring cruise, the surface waters over the shelf near Bering Strait had high concentrations of nutrients, indicating that the main phytoplankton bloom had not yet begun. Although there was some variability, nitrate was relatively abundant over the shelf, with a declining gradient as the Healy moved over the slope to the Arctic Basin. This lack of nitrate in offshore waters was somewhat surprising and may indicate an unusually early bloom in this region. Because observations on productivity in this region are scarce, it is difficult to know if this early bloom is “normal” or related to the recent warming of the Arctic. By comparison, surface nutrient concentrations were low throughout the summer cruise, coincident with the highest water column chlorophyll level (an indicator of plant growth) near the bottom, suggesting post-bloom conditions. Microscopic analyses of plankton also indicated post-bloom conditions. Higher levels of bacteria and bacteria-consuming flagellates occurred in the upper water column in the summer, whereas large diatoms (phytoplankton) occurred in a deeper chlorophyll maximum layer. This accumulation and decay of diatoms at depth suggests that plankton grazers are not able to consume most of the spring bloom; instead, the bulk of the phytoplankton bloom is either decomposed by microbes or sinks to the benthos. Observations of sediment processes indicate varying patterns of sediment focusing and carbon recycling in the SBI study region. High rates of sediment carbon metabolism and nutrient flux (indicators of carbon supply) occur on the shelves, with a general trend of high to low rates observed from shelf to deep basin. Benthic macrofaunal populations also indicate a declining trend in carbon deposition as one moves offshore into the Arctic Basin. Both radioisotope and sediment tracer studies indicate that phytodetritus labeled during the spring cruise rapidly moved offshore and was found at depths as great as 1000 m by the summer along the East Barrow (EB) and Barrow Canyon (BC) regions of the SBI study area. In contrast, similar studies to the west of BC on the East Hanna Shoal shelf-to-basin line indicate relatively low productivity and consequently low carbon transport offshore and to the sediments. Modification of waters over the shelf, both in the water column and via sediments, and the subsequent transport of biogenic signals from the shelf to the basin, were observed during all cross-shelf sections for every SBI cruise on the main transects. By the time of the summer SBI process cruise, most of the production had settled downwards in the water column and undergone transformation in the water and sediments. In support of the SBI field program, the Joint Office of Science Support (JOSS; see page 7) maintained a shipboard field data catalog during both process cruises on the Healy, providing real-time data to scientists on the ship; select data were also available Nutrient concentrations measured along the Barrow Canyon line for nitrate (NO3), silicate (SiO3), and ammonium (NH4) in spring and summer 2002 during the SBI field project. It is notable that when comparing spring vs. summer data from the same hydrographic sections we see an increase of 5 to 10 micromolar in maximum silicate concentrations in the plume originating over the shelf in Barrow Canyon, as well as pulses of ammonium moving off the shelf to the deep basin. These nutrient values were higher than those seen coming in through Bering Strait, suggesting fairly rapid settling and remineralization of diatoms produced by the spring bloom over the shelf. Figure by SBI hydrographic team. 2 3 to onshore PIs. Products included satellite images, ship tracking, weather, CTD data from the hydrographic group and associated bottle data, and shipboard event logs. Mooring Cruises The Bering Strait mooring cruise on the RV Alpha Helix (see Witness Autumn 2001) deployed three moorings in Bering Strait during June to investigate hydrographic and flow properties of Pacific-origin water transiting northward through Bering Strait. These moorings map upstream boundary conditions for the SBI project as well as continuing the time-series records of three moorings that have been maintained in Bering Strait for the last decade. The cruise included both hydrographic and acoustic Doppler current profiling (ADCP) surveys and deployed a number of instruments, including: • hydrographic sensors, • nutrient samplers, • optical instruments, • upward-looking sonar, and • upward-looking ADCP. The Chukchi/Beaufort mooring cruise on the USCGC Polar Star deployed: • three moorings in the Chukchi Sea as part of the Chukchi outflow mooring array, including sensors to measure ocean physics and optical and biochemical parameters; • The Beaufort Shelf Mooring Array, a tightly spaced (3–5 km spacing) line of eight moorings with profiling instrumentation, across the Beaufort continental slope east of Barrow, Alaska; and • an acoustic recording package to record sounds of marine mammals along the Beaufort slope, part of a joint effort with the NOAA National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Investigators on the Polar Star also performed intense hydrographic sampling around each mooring deployment and within Barrow Canyon. Preliminary data on the origin and fate of the shelf-edge boundary currents indicate the outer shelf of the Herald Valley outflow site is filled with cold, dense, Pacific-origin winter water as it flows eastward, forming a shelfbreak jet. The high turbidity seen in this bottom water may be due to sediments drawn into the water mass as it crosses the shelf. Small lenses of water observed at the shelf edge appear to be the beginnings of eddies. For example, a subsurface eddy comprised of cold, turbid, Pacificorigin winter water was observed on the eastern transect of the study region (East Barrow line). The same type of eddy has been observed repeatedly throughout the interior of the Canada Basin, suggesting that these eddies emanate from the shelfedge boundary current. The results of the mooring cruise indicate the western arctic boundary current system is an “eddy factory,” and SBI scientists are investigating why this shelf-edge system is so wildly unstable. Eddy formation is obviously of critical importance for shelf-basin flux of physical and biogeochemical products, and in particular, for the ventilation of the interior Arctic. Outreach and Education The SBI field program received excellent media coverage. A broadcast crew from CBS News, a reporter from USA Today, and a reporter from the Associated Press were aboard the Healy during the summer cruise transit of Barrow Canyon. Other media outlets that covered SBI included the Nome Nugget and KBRW-AM/FM, a National Public Radio affiliate in Barrow. As part of the NSF Teachers Experiencing Antarctica and the Arctic program (TEA; see page 29 and Witness Winter 2000/2001), Betty Carvellas, a Vermont high school science teacher, worked on the summer process cruise on the Healy. In addition to serving on a benthic project team, Carvellas provided daily updates on research and ship operations, including spotlights on individual research groups. Other SBI outreach activities during the field program included: • a tour of the Healy for students from the Anvil City Science Academy (a public magnet school in Nome); and • summaries of cruise activities sent via INMARSAT telephone to a district-wide teachers in-service at Essex High School and to a public forum at the Burnham Library, both in Colchester, Vermont. Future Field Seasons Plans for 2003 include: • a helicopter survey and field sampling project in the SBI study region in March, • participation by some SBI PIs in an April ice camp sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, • the annual Bering Strait mooring cruise, • a hydrographic and sampling survey cruise in July–August, and • a mooring cruise in September. In 2004, four cruises similar to those undertaken in 2002 will allow interannual comparison of processes in the SBI sampling region. The last SBI mooring will be retrieved in 2004. Phase II of SBI will continue through 2006 with data synthesis. The final chapter of SBI (Phase III, 2007–2009) will focus on using the new understanding of this productive arctic ecosystem to model and develop scenarios of the potential impacts of climate change on shelf-basin interactions. The author would like to acknowledge all the SBI Phase II participants for providing many of the concepts and results outlined in this article. For more information see the SBI web site (http://utkbiogw.bio.utk.edu/SBI.nsf), the JOSS web site (http://www.joss.ucar.edu/sbi/), the WHOI web site (http://www.whoi.edu/ science/PO/arcticedge), or the TEA web site (http://tea.rice.edu/tea_carvellasfrontpage. html), or contact Jackie Grebmeier, director, SBI Project Office in Knoxville, TN (865/974-2592; fax 865/974-7896; [email protected]). Jackie Grebmeier is a research professor in the Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecology Group, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage, Alaska, collaborated with SBI to survey marine mammals and seabirds during the spring process cruise. In mid-June, wildlife biologist Marc Webber took highresolution digital photographs of more than 40 groups of walrus. Analyses of these photos will be used to develop correction factors for future surveys using remote sensing systems. Photo courtesy Marc Webber, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Feature Article 4 5 NSF News NSF Highlights Broader Impacts, Environmental Systems On behalf of the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC), NSF has published Arctic Research of the United States twice a year since 1987. Aimed at national and international audiences of government officials, scientists, engineers, educators, private and public groups, and residents of the Arctic, Arctic Research contains • reports on current and planned federal research in the Arctic; • reports of IARPC meetings; and • summaries of other current and planned arctic research. The current issue of Arctic Research of the United States focuses on wildlife research in Alaska. Much of the federal land in Alaska is preserved as parks, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas. Scientific research and study provides the information needed to manage these lands and resources. Scientists supported by several agencies work to ensure that the resources currently enjoyed by Alaskans and visitors will be available to future generations. The current issue illustrates some of the research conducted in Alaska by scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey. It features articles about some of the fascinating animals of Alaska, ranging from the whales and sea lions of southern Alaska waters to the muskoxen of the north, as well as several smaller but no less interesting animals, including sea otters, migratory birds, and resident small mammals. The issue also provides an overview of the ecosystems of Alaska and an introduction to the diversity of humans who have lived and flourished in Alaska for many thousands of years. To receive a copy, send your name and address to Editor, Arctic Research of the United States, National Science Foundation, Office of Polar Programs, 4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22230. For more information, contact Charles E. Myers at OPP (703/292-8029; fax 703/292-9082; [email protected]). Issue of Arctic Research Focuses on Wildlife NSF has announced two items of importance to the arctic research community. One is critical to getting proposals reviewed; the other is a report that recommends major directions in NSFsponsored interdisciplinary environmental research and education for the next decade. Proposals Must Identify Broader Impacts Proposals submitted to the NSF are evaluated on two merit review criteria, which all proposals must address: 1. the intellectual merit of the proposed activity, and 2. the broader impacts of the activity. In July 2002, NSF announced that, beginning in October 2002, proposals that did not explicitly address so-called criterion 2, the broader impacts of the proposed activity, would be immediately rejected without review. Broader impacts must be addressed in a separate section in the project summary and described as an integral part of the project description narrative. Criterion 2 includes: • How well does the activity advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training, and learning? • How well does the proposed activity broaden the participation of underrepresented groups? • To what extent will it enhance the infrastructure for research and education, such as facilities, instrumentation, networks, and partnerships? • Will the results be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological understanding? • What may be the benefits of the proposed activity to society? Some examples of how this criterion might be addressed include: • integrating teachers and students into the research or integrating research into the classroom, • broadening participation of underrepresented minorities and women, • enhancing the infrastructure for research and education, • disseminating information to broaden public understanding of science and technology, or • contributing to society in some way, such as improving understanding of the environment, helping public policy, improving health and welfare, etc. The NSF grant proposal guide is available at http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/ getpub.cfm?gpg. More information and examples of ways to meet criterion 2 are at http://www.nsf.gov/od/opp/opp_advisory/ oaccrit2.htm. Environmental Research and Education Report Released In January 2003, the NSF Advisory Committee on Environmental Research and Education (AC-ERE) released 10-Year Outlook: Complex Environmental Systems Synthesis for Earth, Life and Society in the 21st Century. The report gives guidance to NSF about environmental research and education. In 2000, NSF established the Advisory Committee for Environmental Research and Education to: • provide advice, recommendations, and oversight for the NSF’s environmental research and education portfolio; • be a base of contact with the scientific community; • serve as a forum for consideration of interdisciplinary environmental topics as well as environmental activities in a wide range of disciplines; • provide broad input into long-range plans and partnership opportunities; and • oversee program management, overall balance, and other aspects of environmental research and education activities. The AC-ERE focuses on the coordination, integration, and management of environmental programs across the foundation, but is particularly concerned with aspects that affect multiple disciplines, such as cyberinfrastructure, digital libraries, and interdisciplinary programs, centers, and major instrumentation. For more information or to download the summary report, see the AC-ERE web site (http://www.nsf.gov/geo/ere/ereweb/ advisory.cfm). To obtain copies of either the full report or the summary report, send an e-mail to [email protected]. 4 5 Arctic Upper Atmosphere Research This article continues a series on current topics in arctic upper atmospheric research. Space weather refers to conditions on the Sun and in the solar wind, magnetosphere, ionosphere, and thermosphere that can influence the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems. Modern society increasingly relies on space-based technologies for communications, environmental monitoring, mapping, navigation, and other applications, but detailed understanding of the processes and interactions involved in space weather is just emerging. This is relevant to the Arctic because the magnetic polar regions can be strongly affected by solar plasma. While the upper atmosphere is largely protected from the Sun’s energetic protons and electrons by the Earth’s magnetic field, at high magnetic latitudes this shielding is much less effective at ionospheric and atmospheric altitudes. The aurora borealis and aurora australis manifest this incursion of solar plasma energy on the atmosphere (see Witness Autumn 2001). Aurorae, which result primarily from accelerated electrons and ions impinging upon the upper atmosphere’s neutral gasses, can carry significant amounts of energy and impact atmospheric chemistry and dynamics down to altitudes of roughly 90 kilometers. Solar storms can impact the entirety of both polar regions. During solar storms the solar wind plasma can contain large fluxes of very energetic protons, in the range of tens to hundreds of million electron volts (MeV). When these protons reach the poles, they blanket the regions with significant ionization to quite low altitudes. Termed polar cap absorption (PCA) events because they absorb HF radio waves very efficiently (due to the large numbers of collisions between ionospheric electrons and neutral atoms at the lower altitudes at which they occur), these can cause communication blackouts in the HF bands and influence the chemistry of the polar atmosphere. The plasma in the polar cap can be very highly structured, especially during active conditions, resulting in communication difficulties between Earth-based and satellite-based transceivers. Space weathermen need to derive a predictive understanding of the various phenomena to help develop mitigation strategies, but our current knowledge can be likened to the tropospheric weather prediction capabilities of the 1950s. We know, in a broad sense, how the plasma ejected from the Sun affects the Earth’s magnetosphere and, ultimately, the upper atmosphere, but not the details of that interaction. To address these problems with a coordinated effort, in 1996 several federal agencies initiated the National Space Weather Program (NSWP), a joint program involving NSF, NOAA, USAF, NASA, DOI, and DOE. Although the NSWP has made progress toward forecasting space weather, the present generation of models remain inadequate, measurements of critical parameters are scanty, and the scale of the problem is tremendous. Space Weather Strongly Affects Arctic Upper Atmosphere Variability in space weather must be traced back to variability in the Sun, and upstream measurements are necessarily limited due to the enormous volume over which the physical interactions take place. Progress is being made largely through innovative active and passive remote sensing techniques as well as strategically placed in-situ measurements and increasingly sophisticated assimilative models. Starting at the Sun, spacecraft observations include those made by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (a joint NASA and ESA project), located 1.5 million km sunward of the Earth. Earth-orbiting spacecraft, such as the Wind and Polar spacecraft from the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics program at NASA, supply measurements of the solar wind and magnetospheric plasma. The Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) spacecraft provides views of the entire inner magnetosphere for the first time. The Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere, Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellite measures energy inputs and select ion and neutral species from ionospheric altitudes. Several existing and planned groundbased observatories measure the ionospheric plasma variability. The incoherent scatter radars in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland (NSF’s Søndrestrøm Radar); in northern Scandinavia (European Incoherent SCATter radar); and in Svalbard, Norway (EISCAT Svalbard Radar) allow the diagnosis of most important plasma parameters. NSF’s planned Advanced Modular Incoherent Scatter Radar (AMISR) should significantly extend and enhance this coverage from several locations in the Arctic, using a phased array antenna and distributed transmitter/receiver approach. Designed for remote and continuous operation, the AMISR will include three separate, relocatable phased-array radars. The proposed initial locations are near Fairbanks, Alaska, for auroral studies, and Resolute Bay, Nunavut, Canada, for studies of the central polar cap region. For more information, see the NSWP web site (http://www.spacescience.org/ SWOP/NSWP), or contact Craig Heinselman at SRI International in Menlo Park, CA (650/859-3777; fax 650/322-2318; [email protected]). The dramatic increase of ionization from the 2000 Bastille Day storm. Left: quiet-time measurements of electron density as a function of altitude from the NSF Søndrestrøm Incoherent Scatter Radar in Greenland. Solar illumination produces E-region ionization down to approximately 90 kilometers altitude. Two profiles also show thin sporadic E layers at just under 115 km; these layers consist of monatomic metal ions left behind by meteor ablation. Right: the impact of high energy protons, showing a distinct peak in ionization at 70 km lasting for many hours, and significant ionization enhancements to below 50 km. Figure by C. Heinselman. 6 7 ARCSS Program New NSF ARCSS Program Director Reviews Progress By Neil Swanberg By all accounts 2002 has been an important year for the Arctic System Science (ARCSS) program. The second ARCSS All-Hands workshop in February opened a vital discussion in the ARCSS community about the current and future structure of the ARCSS Program (see Witness Spring 2002). The Land Shelf Initiative (LSI; see page 12) and Pan-Arctic Cycles, Transitions, and Sustainability (PACTS; see page 9) emerged as strong new concepts in ARCSS. The proceedings of the meeting will be published by ARCUS in March 2003. Over the summer, SBI had a highly productive field year, completing four scientific cruises (see page 1). ARCSS held a special competition on the arctic freshwater cycle for proposals addressing freshwater and hydrological issues in the science plans of: • the Pan-Arctic Community-wide Hydrological Analysis and Modeling Program (CHAMP; see page 11), • Arctic/Subarctic Ocean Fluxes (ASOF, see Witness Winter 2000/2001), and • the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH; see page 21). The broad topic required care to ensure program balance in all the key areas of the freshwater cycle. Over the summer, discussions among the ARCSS leadership and in an ARCSS Committee meeting made clear that the ARCSS Program would benefit from a system-level synthesis effort. This would be science-driven and take two forms: • a short-term effort that would support a reorganization of the program and develop a model of the arctic system; • a longer term effort that would lead to a variety of deeper, research-based synthesis activities that would produce a substantial scientific product. The Land-Atmosphere-Ice Interactions (LAII) project Arctic Transitions in the Land-Atmosphere System (ATLAS; see page 9 and Witness Autumn 1998) and the Ocean-Atmosphere-Ice Interactions (OAII) project Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic (SHEBA, see Witness Spring 2000) held their own synthesis workshops during the fall. As science management entities, LAII and OAII are also likely to wind down in their current form but will continue to support the ARCSS research community until a new science management structure is in place. The arctic paleoscience community organized in Paleoenvironmental Arctic Sciences (PARCS; see page 10) is encouraged to compete under the NSF Earth Systems History (ESH) banner now and in future years. Under a new arrangement with the ESH program, ARCSS has access to the ESH process without an irrevocable commitment: i.e., ARCSS support will be contingent on successful arctic proposals. Investigators funded through the Human Dimensions of the Arctic System (HARC) initiated several efforts to reinforce the community of HARC researchers (see page 12 and Witness Spring 2002). At the end of 2002, I became permanent director of the ARCSS Program. My guess is that next year will be as exciting as this one was. For more information about the ARCSS Program, see http://www.nsf.gov/ od/opp/arctic/system.htm, or contact ARCSS Program Director Neil Swanberg in Arlington, VA (703/292-8029; fax 703/ 292-9081; [email protected]v). ARCSS Committee Aims for Long-term Synthesis By Jonathan Overpeck 2002 was a big year for the Arctic as well as for ARCSS. For the Arctic, unprecedented summer warmth and sea ice retreat highlighted why arctic research is so timely and important. For ARCSS, partnership with the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) program (see page 20– 21) generated a major increase in funding (see page 22). The ARCSS Program also has new leadership. We offer thanks and best wishes to Mike Ledbetter, and welcome Neil Swanberg as the new program director. Neil brings a wealth of experience in interdisciplinary science and already has built a good working relationship with the ARCSS Committee (AC). His rich involvement with the International GeosphereBiosphere Program (IGBP) will be a big help in making ARCSS even stronger than before. In 2002, I began serving as the chair of the AC. We owe great thanks to Jack Kruse for the job he’s done since 1997. ARCSS is a strong, well-funded program with interdisciplinary strength that is better and broader than ever. I look forward to working with Neil, the AC, and the entire ARCSS community to build on the strong foundation that Jack and Mike organized. The next year will be busy for the AC and ARCSS Program leadership, with the charge to produce the next Five Year ARCSS Science Plan, as well as to ensure a smooth transition to this next stage of ARCSS research. The process is as important as the product. Building on the 2002 ARCSS All-Hands meeting (see Witness Spring 2002), and the other activities over the past year, the AC will focus on: • First, a one-plus year arctic system synthesis, intended to be an intellectual exercise as well as the process by which the next ARCSS science plan is generated. • Second, setting the stage for a new longer term research-intensive arctic system synthesis to ensure that we understand how the entire integrated system works, and how this understanding best meets the needs of society. • Third, doing all it can to help NSF and the arctic science community maintain a smoothly running and well-subscribed NSF science program. I’d like to thank the members of the scientific community who’ve contributed their intellect, experience, and energy to strengthen the ARCSS Program. Feel free to continue bringing issues and ideas to individual AC members (including the chair!) or your program leadership. Communication is key to a vibrant ARCSS. Jonathan Overpeck is director of Institute for the Study of Planet Earth and a professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arizona (520/622-9065; fax 520/792-8795; [email protected]) 6 7 ARCSS Program Integrated data management is important to the success of large, multiinvestigator projects like SBI (see page 1). The ARCSS Program funded the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) Joint Office for Science Support (JOSS) to produce a comprehensive data management strategy for the SBI Project, in cooperation with the SBI Project Office and investigators. This strategy provides project investigators and the general science community with timely access to a complete project database and associated documentation. A major component of this strategy is the implementation of an on-line field catalog during cruises to provide nearreal-time documentation and browsing of operational data. Field Catalog Previously deployed in the Arctic for the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic (SHEBA; see Witness Spring 2000) project, the on-line field catalog (see figure) is a valuable tool for reporting and monitoring operational activities and a permanent archive of cruise activities. JOSS field catalogs were installed onboard the USCGC Healy (see Witness Spring/Autumn 1999) for both the spring and summer SBI process cruises. The catalog organizes data and documentation for use in the field and acts as a detailed field report after operations have ended. It facilitates communication during fieldwork by keeping participants abreast of ongoing operations. Because a portion of the shipboard catalog content is routinely uplinked via satellite to the JOSS Boulder facilities, land-based scientific co-workers and others can monitor the ship’s operation and progress. During both cruises, the catalog was used by project participants aboard ship and ashore as well as by USCG staff and families at home, the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, and others interested in the ship’s operations. Catalog Products Two components of the field catalog were especially popular during SBI: • a ship track plot, updated every 15 to 30 minutes, showing station locations, moorings, and bathymetry (data from the International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean; see Witness Spring 2000); • an event log detailing station activities, including in-water and on-deck times and Seabeam water depth from the daily logs generated by the Coast Guard. During the spring cruise, a part of the field catalog allowed researchers to log detailed ice observations complete with digital photos and automatically incorporated current data from the ship, including position, water depth, and current weather parameters. Other products available through the field catalog included: • satellite products from NOAA and Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) polar orbiters; • weather and related data, updated twice daily, including 24-hour time-series plots of temperature, winds, pressure, humidity, and water depth; • CTD data in two standard formats, including temperature, salinity, oxygen, transmittance, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), and fluorometer measurements, vertical section plots of various parameters for station transects, and comments on each cast; • bottle data, including bottle hydrographic reports and synthesized vertical section plots of specific variables for various station transects; and •reports, including the daily operational summaries, Teachers Experiencing Antarctica and the Arctic (TEA; see page 29 and Witness Winter 2000/2001) daily journals, summary reports, cruise summary, and science reports. Post-Cruise Catalog Use Near the end of each cruise, JOSS personnel onboard the Healy worked with service team members to produce a CD for each PI of the catalog station products as well as all service data and ancillary PI datasets. U.S. Coast Guard crewmembers also made a CD copy of the ship’s underway data files available. As part of JOSS’s data management services, several additional underway datasets were archived to tape for availability through the SBI data archive at JOSS. For more information, see the complete field catalogs for both cruises, which are now available at JOSS (http: //www.joss.ucar.edu/sbi/catalog), or contact James A. Moore (303/497-8635; fax 303/497-8158; [email protected]). JOSS On-line Field Catalog Supports SBI Cruises The SBI field catalog front page can be found at http://www.joss.ucar.edu/sbi/catalog. 8 9 ARCSS Program The NSF Arctic System Science (ARCSS) Program’s effectiveness requires the integration of knowledge from various disciplines, which in turn depends on the accessibility and exchange of data among the scientific community. The ARCSS Program requires its awardees to submit data and metadata to the ADCC after an interval allowing for analysis and publication. The ARCSS Program funded the establishment of the ARCSS Data Coordination Center (ADCC) at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) of the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1994. The ADCC is the permanent long-term data archive for all components of the ARCSS Program. The ADCC, through long-term data archiving and documentation, strives to promote knowledge synthesis and exchange among the research scientists who study the response of the Arctic to global climate change. Because researchers can use raw data for purposes that may differ from the original reason the data were collected, the longterm archive of ARCSS data may have a much broader audience than just ARCSS investigators. Data that lack adequate documentation (metadata) can effectively become “lost.” Technology will continue to provide access to data in the future, but the usefulness of data is limited without accompanying metadata. Complete documentation, including metadata (information about data), is key to ensuring the long-term preservation of data. The ADCC collects metadata from scientists working on ARCSS-funded and related projects. Metadata describe the “who, what, where, when, why, and how” of the data set and are crucial to an investigator looking for suitable data sets to answer specific research questions. The ARCSS Data Policy (http: //arcss.colorado.edu/arcss/protocol/ protocol.html) describes minimum metadata requirements, which help to ensure thorough and accurate metadata and archiving in a way that facilitates data use and access. By providing high-level information about a specific data set, metadata enable users to assess a data set’s characteristics and applicability to their research, focus their data searches, and retrieve the appropriate data sets. To help ARCSS principal investigators meet metadata requirements, the ADCC produces two types of data set documentation, based on information that PIs submit with their data: a data interchange format (DIF) file and a summary document. Both act to standardize a given data set’s metadata, increase ease of use, and allow future access to that data set. In addition, the ADCC submits metadata to the Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) and ensures that all ARCSS Program metadata are complete and meet Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) standards. For more information see the ADCC web site (http://arcss.colorado.edu/) or contact Rudy Dichtl at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, CO (303/ 492-5532; [email protected]). Metadata is Vital to Long-term Utility of Data A new CD documents life in the field for the Arctic Transitions in the LandAtmosphere System (ATLAS) project at Ivotuk, Alaska (see Witness Autumn 1998; page 9). The data, collected at the Ivotuk site by more than 30 researchers from January 1998 through June 2000, are archived on the ATLAS Project Ivotuk Site CD, published by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Joint Office for Science Support (UCAR/JOSS; see page 7), under the auspices of ATLAS. The main purpose of the Ivotuk CD is to provide a single archive source for the multidisciplinary data collected at the site. James Moore, Greg Stossmeister, and Don Stott of JOSS worked with a number of ATLAS investigators to determine the size and scope of the CD. The research at Ivotuk focuses on • the exchange of energy and mass between the tundra surface and the atmosphere, and • developing models and parameterizations to allow extrapolation of how changes in climate could affect these fluxes. Researchers collected data on components of the system, including permafrost, soil, vegetation, atmosphere, and water—as liquid, vapor, and solid ice and snow. The fluxes between the various components are primarily energy, moisture, and trace gases (CO2 and methane). The Ivotuk CD interface can access the data through an interactive map or by • discipline (active layer/permafrost, flux, hydrology, meteorology, snow, soil, and vegetation); • working group (snow, shrubs, and weather; hydrological response; energy and trace gas flux; substrate and vegetation; permafrost soils; trace gas fluxes; active layer and permafrost geophysics); • site (any of five grid study areas, four study lines, or two meteorological sites); or • year. The Ivotuk CD also includes an overview of the project, providing background information with slide shows contributed by the researchers, abstracts and field reports, and an interview with Terry Chapin by Robert Hannon of Alaska Public Radio’s “Alaska Edition.” A zoom sequence comprising 95 USGS topographic grids orients the viewer to Ivotuk’s geography. Snow-melt sequences provide graphic evidence of the progression of the seasons. The CD also shows the human side of the research, including living quarters, shared meals, and hikes across the vast landscape. A PowerPoint “movie” presents University of Virginia graduate student Monika Calef’s unique take on her Ivotuk experience. The CD is available at the UCAR/ JOSS web site (http://www.joss.ucar.edu/ atlas). For more information contact Don Stott in Boulder, CO (303/497-8154; fax 303/497-8158; [email protected]). New CD Compiles ATLAS Materials 8 9 ARCSS Program ATLAS Research Enters Synthesis Phase The sculpted snow near a tributary to the Oumalik River, 80 miles southeast of Atqasuk, reflects the intimate relationship between snow, topography, vegetation, and wind. Photo by Ken Tape. The Arctic Transitions in the LandAtmosphere System Project (ATLAS; see Witness Autumn 2001), which is a major part of the Land-Atmosphere-Ice Interactions (LAII) component of the ARCSS Program, has entered a synthesis phase after four years of intensive fieldwork. During the field component of the project, researchers representing more than a dozen institutions and universities with expertise ranging from ecology and soil science to atmospheric dynamics and hydrology compared sites in northern Alaska, near Barrow, Atqasuk, and Ivotuk; in western Alaska, near Nome; and in Siberia, near Cherskii. The goal of the field program was to document the role of the arctic terrestrial system in global climate change, and more particularly, to explore how feedbacks in the land-atmosphere system might impact arctic ecology and human society. The field campaigns focused on processes occurring in two specific and critical arctic transition zones—the forest to tundra transition, and the shrub to tundra transition. The ATLAS synthesis has already produced some interesting products. A CD containing the data collected by all the projects that worked at Ivotuk, on the North Slope of Alaska, is available (see page 8). A half-hour video on ATLAS research entitled “A Changing Landscape: Investigating a Warming Arctic” has been produced by KUAC-TV (University of Alaska) to air on West Coast TV affiliates in 2003. A special issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research containing nine papers from the ATLAS project was published in late January 2003. As part of the synthesis, ATLAS researchers met in October 2002 near Victoria, British Columbia, to explore the connections between their research efforts. Several important themes emerged that form the basis of papers being prepared for publication. Three papers focus on the winter processes taking place in the snow and soil, examining how these processes interact and how they impact the growth of shrubs and other plants and the winter release of CO2. These papers validate one of the key findings of ATLAS: that research must extend beyond the traditional growing season to understand biotic-abiotic feedbacks in the Arctic. Another manuscript documents the dramatic changes that have occurred in the arctic terrestrial system over the past 30 years, including: • changes in vegetation (increasing shrubs and northward migration of treeline), • changes in the date of freeze-up of the tundra on the North Slope of Alaska (more than 60 days later than in the 1960s), and • changes in discharge of arctic rivers (flow has increased by as much as 10%). In Victoria, ATLAS researchers also looked to the future, finishing a science plan for a new research program—PanArctic Cycles, Transitions, and Sustainability (PACTS; see Witness Spring 2002)—concentrated on transitions and changes in arctic biophysical, biogeochemical, and social systems. PACTS proposes to investigate the interaction of physical and living systems (e.g., the hydrological cycle and the tundra ecosystem), rather than individual systems themselves, using the concepts of sustainability and the assessment of vulnerability in human and natural systems as guiding principles to ensure that future research will be relevant to the identification of potential adaptive strategies in the face of a changing climate. While it builds on ideas and accomplishments from LAII research, the PACTS science plan more explicitly emphasizes biotic and abiotic interactions. Its scale and scope are larger as well, with a regional viewpoint that seeks to understand the Pan-Arctic as a large complex system. The plan provides a bridge between the past disciplinary and geographically organized research and a more thematic structure that cuts across disciplines and geographic boundaries. The LAII science steering committee took the lead in developing the plan, which was reviewed by a broad segment of the ARCSS science community. The major objectives of the plan are: • Using new knowledge generated during LAII and other ARCSS programs, identify important unanswered questions related to arctic biophysical and biogeochemical systems, and from these questions, define the critical areas of research that will best advance knowledge of the Arctic System as a whole; • Provide a strategy and approach that can guide how the new integrated research will address the critical questions; and • Create a mechanism for the implementation of PACTS. For more information, see the LAII web site (http://www.laii.uaf.edu/) or contact LAII science steering committee chair Matthew Sturm (907/353-5183; fax 907/ 353-5142; [email protected].mil). To obtain a copy of or to broadcast the video “The Changing Landscape,” contact KUAC (907/474-7491; fax 907/474-5064; [email protected]). For more information on the JGR special issue, contact A. David McGuire (907/474-6242; fax 907/4746716; [email protected]). 16 17 Arctic Natural Sciences Program The Bering Sea Volcanic Province, from northwestern Alaska through the Bering Sea to the northern part of the Russian Far East, is located between two major plates (Eurasia and North America). The complex geological history of this area involved subduction events as crustal blocks of various affinities amalgamated to form the landmasses and continental shelf we see today. There also is field evidence for rifting, indicating that stress regimes changed through time. Because details of the tectonic setting of the Bering Sea region and Alaska mainland remain ambiguous, the sources and causes of magmatism outside of the Aleutian Arc proper are not clearly understood. Convergent zone (arc) volcanism, associated with subduction of plates, is fundamentally different from magmatism associated with mantle melting due to decompression along divergent plate boundaries. Arc melting involves fluxing with water derived from the subducted slab. The presence of water in arc magmas often leads to violent and devastating eruptions. It also is not known whether the mantle in the Bering Sea region still retains memory of water addition by the subduction that occurred during the assembly of circum-Bering Sea terranes during the Cretaceous Period (over 100 million years ago). Lava flows in the Bering Sea region are of particular geologic interest because they contain inclusions of peridotite believed to originate in the upper mantle, providing the only direct examples of rocks from 40 km or more below the surface. These peridotite inclusions contain geochemical information that can be used to deduce tectonic evolution, and their host volcanic rocks provide isotopic age information about the frequency of eruptions. The Arctic Natural Sciences Program has funded Samuel Mukasa and Alex Andronikov of the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Michigan to use these peridotite inclusions and their host lavas to describe the composition, structure, and evolutionary history of the Earth’s upper mantle in the Bering Sea region. With help from the Nome National Park Service office and bush pilots from Nome, Kotzebue, and Aniak, the researchers collected samples from several young volcanic fields, including: • Cloud Lake and Imuruk Lake, near the eastern edge of the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, • the Grand Central Valley near the peak of Mt. Osborn, • St. Michael, • the three prominent volcanic peaks across Grantley Harbor from Teller, • “Lake 277” on Nunivak Island, and • St. Paul and St. George in the Pribilof Islands. Mukasa and Andronikov hope to collect additional materials on future expeditions to volcanic fields around Bethel, as well as in interior Alaska. They will generate major oxide, trace element, and isotopic data on minerals separated from the peridotite inclusions in their attempts to decipher the tectonic evolution of the region. They will also obtain 40Ar/39Ar and 14C data to compute the eruption ages of morphologically young lava flows to establish the temporal and spatial variation of volcanism. A subset of the volcanic samples younger than 50,000 years will be processed for trace element concentrations as well as Sr, Nd, and U-series isotopic data to address the following: • What are the possible mantle sources of the lavas? • How do these mantle sources vary temporally and spatially? • Is the recent volcanism related to subduction or decompressional processes affecting the mantle sources? • What is the interplay, if any, between the volcanism in the Bering Sea and interior Alaska and arc volcanism in the Aleutian Arc? • What can we infer about future volcanic hazards? This work will contribute to a mandate of the Arctic Natural Sciences Program by improving understanding of the tectonic development of the Arctic, recognized to be an important boundary condition for other studies, including climate change, environmental change, and life/lithosphere interactions. Understanding the processes that control lithospheric evolution during extension will provide important constraints on thermomechanical models of rifting and on the chemical evolution of the mantle beneath continents. For more information, contact Samuel B. Mukasa at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (734/936-3227; fax 734/7634690; [email protected]). Location map for the Bering Sea Volcanic Province (BSVP) and interior Alaska. Young volcanic fields to be studied in this project are shown with black triangles. The inset map (top left) shows the BSVP in relation to the Aleutian Arc (dark line with half-track pattern) and the Eurasian and North American Plates. Arrows show the relative motion of the Pacific plate. Modified after Moll-Stalcup, E. J. (1996). The origin of the Bering Sea Basalt Province, Western Alaska. Geol. Pac. Ocean 12, 671–690. Eruptions Release Clues to Bering Sea Tectonic History 16 17 Arctic Natural Sciences Program Temperate glaciers transmit large volumes of melt water each summer through a dynamic subglacial drainage system of conduits and cavities. Much of glacier behavior is linked to the annual evolution of this subglacial plumbing— especially in spring when the system is too small to handle the growing inputs from snow melt. Melt water enters the glacier through crevasses and vertical pipes called moulins, ultimately reaching the glacier bed. Much of the year a distributed system of linked cavities slowly drains the bed; this is augmented in summer by a network of river-like conduits in which water flow velocities are high. The conduits close due to viscous creep of the ice under the weight of the overlying glacier when counteracting water pressures are low—which occurs with waning melt in the fall, or possibly during cold spells in the summer. The continually evolving nature of this conduit system impacts all aspects of glacier behavior, from glacier sliding to solute flux, and potentially to outburst flood initiation, through poorly understood effects on water pressure and water storage within the glacier. Two Alaskan glacier projects funded by the NSF Arctic Natural Sciences Program share glacial hydrology as an integrating theme, although the projects focus on different glaciological problems. At Bench Glacier in the Chugach Range, a group from the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), and University of Washington works on glacier dynamics and erosion, while at Kennicott Glacier in the Wrangell Mountains, a group from UCSC, Portland State University, and the U.S. Geological Survey monitors annual jökulhlaups (glacier outburst floods) from an ice-dammed lake. By surveying targets on the 7-km-long Bench Glacier, researchers identified a wave of relatively high sliding velocity that propagates upglacier in early summer. The maximum sliding velocities coincide with a peak in water storage within the glacier. The high temporal resolution of horizontal and vertical displacements provided by five differential GPS receivers (from the University NAVSTAR Consortium [UNAVCO; see Witness Spring 2002]) Glacier Behavior Linked to Seasonal Hydrology on the glacier in summer of 2002 allowed detailed analysis of glacier movement. Meltwater inputs exceeded water outputs throughout a subtle sliding event in late May, during which water storage at the bed in growing subglacial cavities can be inferred from the vertical uplift of the glacier surface. Two exceptionally warm days in mid-June caused stream discharge to more than quadruple about 12 hours after sliding velocities increased simultaneously across the glacier. The first sliding event appeared to open up cavities at the bed but did not awaken the stream system, and high water pressures were maintained. The second event promoted development of a conduit system, which drained the stored water. Water chemistry can be used to probe the subglacial hydrologic system. Fastflowing water in conduits, with little opportunity to react with bed materials, has low dissolved ion concentrations. The higher solute concentrations of the water within the distributed flow system reflect its greater residence time at the bed in contact with ground-up rock particles. At Bench Glacier, solute concentrations suggest that average subglacial residence time of water declines through the summer, as expected for an increasingly efficient drainage system. At the much larger and thicker Kennicott Glacier, river chemistry undergoes long-period cycles lagged relative to discharge variations. The chemistry reflects water pressure fields that alternately promote and prevent drainage of high solute water from the distributed flow system. Ice-dammed Hidden Creek Lake at Kennicott Glacier drains through a 16km-long subglacial conduit each summer, permitting planned monitoring of an extreme event. For two field seasons, the Kennicott Glacier team measured lake level and ice-dam deformation, drilled boreholes, and gauged the glacier outlet stream. These data yielded the first complete pair of hydrographs—one of flow out of the lake, one of flow out of the glacier—through a glacier outburst flood, or jökulhlaup. Observations of the water level in the lake at the time of drainage, and of the discharge in the Kennicott River prior to drainage, point to the importance of dynamic subglacial hydrology in triggering lake drainage. The outlet river chemistry suggests that lake drainage occurs when water pressures are higher in the distributed system than in conduits—conditions that presumably promote conduit extension. Prerequisites for the outburst appear to include both that the lake reach a threshold level and that a subglacial conduit system be in place nearby the lake. Models that link water pressures, water balance, glacier sliding, and conduit growth are being developed to explain the Bench and Kennicott Glacier observations. For more information, see http:// es.ucsc.edu/~spa/SPAnderson.research.html and http://www.geol.pdx.edu/Glaciers/ Kennicott/, or contact Suzanne Anderson at the University of California, Santa Cruz (831/459-5827; fax 831/459-3074; [email protected]). When a glacier slides over its bed—as opposed to normal slow deformation—it attains higher speeds and, importantly, both drags rocks along the bed, causing abrasion, and promotes crack growth leading to quarrying. At Bench Glacier, the wave of sliding in the spring moves the ice ~1 m and produces most of the present-day ~1 mm per year erosion of the rock bed, demonstrating the extreme efficiency of glacial erosion. Although the high water pressures that precede the opening of a subglacial conduit are important in promoting sliding and therefore in eroding the bed, sediment delivery to the terminus is associated with transport in fast-flowing conduits, particularly as the conduits first open up. Photo by Suzanne P. Anderson. 18 19 Arctic Social Sciences Program Authoritarian regimes (particularly the Soviet regime) are thought to produce social atomization, in which people are unlikely to trust one another. As societies emerge from authoritarianism, however, trust is important in shaping both democracy and markets. In the political realm, interpersonal trust promotes civic engagement and community building, and institutional trust helps overcome the dilemmas of collective action. In the economic sphere, interpersonal trust reduces transaction costs for exchange and facilitates cooperation. The Arctic Social Sciences Program has funded a project to measure levels of trust in two Russian republics in transition. Donna Bahry (Political Science, Vanderbilt University) and Rick Wilson (Political Science, Rice University) are investigating whether individuals rely on personal networks or use ethnic attachments and whether new political and economic institutions are used to build trust. Bahry and Wilson completed fieldwork for “Collaborative Research on Ethnicity and Transition in Russia” in Tatarstan and Sakha. Both republics are leaders in the campaign for republic sovereignty and for interethnic accommodation and represent critical cases for the study of interethnic relations. Both experienced indigenous ethnic mobilization in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and both governments promote ethnic accommodation between the titular group and local Russians. The two Republics also provide powerful contrasts. Tatarstan is better integrated into the Russian transportation and market system and has a fairly dense population. Sakha has rich natural resources but lies largely within the Arctic Circle, has very low population density, and has exceedingly limited transportation networks. The project brings together two distinct types of data collection. The first involved a two-hour face-to-face survey of a stratified cluster sample of citizens of Tatarstan and Sakha. Approximately 1200 individuals in each republic were asked about their workplace experiences, political activity, ethnicity, experiences with ethnic discrimination, trust of and experiences with a variety of political and economic institutions, and an array of social and demographic characteristics. The survey data were collected by Demoscope, housed in the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The second part of the research brought a subsample of the interviewees together to participate in controlled, laboratory experiments to test concepts of fairness, equity, risk orientation, and trust. As an example, a typical experiment involved 14 individuals in the same room. Subjects had a private workspace (a cardboard box at their desk) and were given money, which they kept, with which they made decisions. On average, subjects made almost 550 rubles ($18) for two hours in the lab, equivalent to anywhere from half a day’s wage to many months’ pension for subjects. A total of 651 subjects participated in 47 experimental sessions. In the trust game, half the subjects (the trusters) were handed an envelope containing eight 10-ruble bank notes and eight blank slips of paper the size of a bank note. They were asked to put eight objects in the envelope and keep the remaining eight objects. The envelope then would be given to another subject. Before being handed to that person, however, any money in the envelope would be tripled. The second person (the trustee) then opened the envelope and returned whatever he or she wished. Whatever remained in the envelope was returned to the truster. This experiment taps both trust and trustworthiness. Any amount that the truster sends risks being taken by the trustee. Because subjects are randomly paired and never know with whom they are paired, the truster has to believe that the other subjects are trustworthy. There are real rewards for trusting: a subject sending 80 rubles (about one third of a day’s wage in Sakha), has that Ethnicity and Trust are Key to Russian Transition Bahry and Wilson worked in several villages in Sakha and Tatarstan. This village was approximately 140 kilometers east-northeast of Yakutsk, in Sakha. The forest fires raging throughout Sakha had created a haze in the air. The teepee in the center of the picture was prepared for a celebration of the summer solstice. Photo by Rick Wilson. amount tripled to 240 rubles. So long as a trustee returns at least 90 rubles, the truster is better off. On the other hand, the truster risks losing everything sent if the trustee is not trustworthy. This portion of the experiment posed a real dilemma, and subjects spent a good deal of time contemplating their choices. The research team has begun to analyze these data. Preliminary results indicate that levels of trust are higher than were originally expected. The Russian subjects are trusting at rates similar to those reported in the U.S. for comparable types of experiments. The team is looking at whether this trust is confined to networks of close friends, centered in ethnic groups, or widespread. While most subjects are trustworthy, the amounts reciprocated are slightly less than what is sent. Again, such findings are common in similar experiments conducted in the U.S. In future analyses combining the rich attitudinal data from the surveys with the behavioral data, it will be possible to test hypotheses about the sources of trust and the impact of transitional institutions on the levels of trust in these societies. For more information, see the project web page (http://brl.rice.edu/Siberia/), or contact Rick Wilson at Rice University in Houston, TX (713/348-3352; fax 713/ 348-5273; [email protected]). 18 19 Mixed Siberian Communities Defy Ethnic Categorization Arctic Social Sciences Program “We are locals. We do not have a nation ...” —a 72-year-old woman in Russkoe Ust’e, Sakha, 1999. The quote above, from a resident of Russkoe Ust’e, refers to the problems faced by members of ethnically and linguistically mixed communities of northeastern Siberia when trying to define themselves in terms of state-approved ethnic labels. Russkoe Ust’e is a village of slightly more than 200 inhabitants located at 71˚ N in the delta of the Indigirka River in the northeastern part of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The majority of local residents have been registered as “Russians” by representatives of the state bureaucracy, while their favorite self-designation—“locals”—is not recognized beyond colloquial and spatially circumscribed contexts. Similarly, the broad label “Native,” which is applied to most communities neighboring Russkoe Ust’e, is unavailable to the “locals,” despite their often close resemblances in subsistence techniques, spiritual beliefs, and physical appearance. The Russian scholarly literature refers to these people as starozhily, which literally means “long-time residents” and is commonly translated as “Old Settlers.” Old Settlers is a broad label applied to several groups of Russian descent who have lived in various Asian parts of the former Russian Empire since at least the 19th century. The existence of Old Settler groups is tied to the process of Russian colonization of North Asia, reaching back to the 16th and 17th centuries. Many of the early Russian settlers married indigenous women. Their ethnically mixed descendants developed distinctive religious, economic, and social practices that share elements adopted from neighboring indigenous groups. In 1998, the Arctic Social Sciences Program funded Peter P. Schweitzer of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Nikolai B. Vakhtin and Evgeniy V. Golovko, both of the European University at St. Petersburg, to compare past and present processes of social and cultural exchange in three Old Settler communities in northeastern Siberia. In addition to Russkoe Ust’e, the collaborators conducted fieldwork in the communities of Pokhodsk and Markovo. Pokhodsk, similar to Russkoe Ust’e, is a small village located in a tundra environment along the Kolyma River, close to the shores of the Arctic Ocean in northeastern Sakha. Markovo is a slightly bigger regional center situated on the Anadyr River in the forest tundra zone of western Chukotka. Focused on issues of history, power, and ethnicity, study methods included archival research, semistructured interviews, collection of oral histories, and participant observation. Data analysis is in the final stages, and a Russian book on the subject will appear in 2003. Notable findings include: • All communities under consideration define themselves in varying degrees through their mixed heritage. • This mixed heritage puts them in a category separate from “Russians” (or “colonizers”) and “Natives” (or “colonized”). Various individuals and groups differ significantly, however, in where they place themselves on such a “continuum of identities.” • Ethnic labels—both as self-designations and designations by others—play an important role in these processes of ethnic identity. • The current situation of these communities cannot be understood without considering their historical genesis. Conversely, the current situation does not necessarily represent previous epochs. • The Soviet period of the region’s history was particularly influential in triggering social, cultural, and economic changes. • While “isolation” has been a characteristic feature of the genesis and historical development of these communities, longstanding social relations with a limited number of neighboring groups was a precondition for the sustained existence of these communities. The three study communities belonged to two distinct regional networks. • The study communities held changing positions in regional hierarchies of political power and social The “harbor” of Russkoe Ust’e: the boats are used to check fishing nets on the Indigirka River. Riverine fishing is the primary subsistence activity for the Old Settlers of the region. Photo by Peter Schweitzer. status. Generally speaking, the predominant group status was, until recently, that of middlemen and/or cultural brokers between “Russians” and “Natives.” • The current cultural and social conditions led to the gradual disappearance of the cultural elements that had characterized mixed communities in northeastern Siberia for centuries. At the same time, the global processes of cultural commodification make these disappearing—and previously low-esteemed—traits into emblems of cultural identity. To clarify whether the specific qualities and problems of mixed communities in northeastern Siberia are idiosyncratic or typical for a wider range of northern communities, Schweitzer co-organized and chaired a session at the 2002 meeting of the American Anthropological Association entitled Creole Identities? The Predicaments of Mixed Communities in the Circumpolar North. Case studies from Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Siberia revealed a remarkable number of commonalities. In addition to making their results available to an English-speaking audience, Schweitzer and colleagues will focus future endeavors on developing a broadly comparative and circumpolar perspective. For more information contact Peter P. Schweitzer at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (907/474-5015; fax 907/4747453; [email protected]), Nikolai B. Vakhtin ([email protected]), or Evgeniy V. Golovko ([email protected].edu), the latter two at the European University at St. Petersburg, Russia. 20 21 New Program Manager Joins Arctic Social Sciences By Anna Kerttula As the new program manager for the NSF Arctic Social Sciences Program, I would like to introduce myself and some of my goals for the program. I grew up in Alaska and received my baccalaureate and masters degrees from the University of Alaska and my PhD in anthropology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. My fieldwork included extensive research in Alaska, but my PhD work was in Chukotka, Russia, where I worked in the village of Sireniki on the Bering Sea coast from 1989–91 on social and cultural group formation and change among the Chukchi and Yup’ik during the Soviet period. After I returned to the U.S., I became the special assistant for Russian affairs to Senator Ted Stevens. For the last five years I have been the associate director for the Alaska Governor’s Office in Washington, DC. After my stint in public policy, I looked for a way to return to academia and had the good fortune to be chosen by NSF for this position. I feel fortunate to join the Arctic Social Sciences Program (ASSP) at this propitious time. The past decade has been remarkable in expanding social science research in the Arctic. In the last 10 years, several programs at NSF have contributed resources to further social scientific understanding and education in the Arctic—over $20 million through OPP alone. Currently the ASSP is funded at about $1.9 million a year. The annual mean award over the last five years is $65,000. Now we should build on this investment and take the program into new and exciting research areas. NSF’s founding legislation includes a broad vision of education, social policy, international goals, and national defense, along with basic research. In other words, ASSP can fund education, international collaborations, policy research, etc., as well as traditional social science research projects. In addition to this expansive mission statement, the current NSF leadership’s vision is very pertinent to ASSP. At a recent meeting, Deputy Director Joseph Bordogna talked about “science at the frontier.” The frontier is not just your research site but the frontier of your intellect and imagination. Research in the Arctic is in an extreme environment, and our ideas should First SEARCH Open Science Meeting Set for October 2003 The Office of Polar Programs is sponsoring an open science meeting in support of the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH; see facing page) program. Planned for 27–30 October 2003 in Seattle, Washington, the meeting will focus on science with addresses from keynote speakers, posters, and working groups discussing the state of our knowledge on SEARCH research themes and activity areas. The planning phase for the U.S. SEARCH effort is now complete: • a large number of scientists contributed to the development of the SEARCH Science and Implementation Plans (http://psc.apl.washington.edu/search/) through an open process in a comprehensive series of disciplinary meetings, and • the plans have been or soon will be approved by the sponsor, an Interagency Working Group of federal agencies. SEARCH plans and successes will be presented to the community in an open meeting, a symposium focused on current understanding of the science of environmental change in the Arctic, with the goal of informing and engaging the broad arctic research community in the activities contributing to SEARCH, both in the U.S. and international arenas. An organizing committee established by ARCUS is working with the SEARCH Science Steering Committee, the Interagency Working Group, and the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC; see page 26), to determine the broad themes and format of the meeting and to enrich international involvement in SEARCH science planning. The sponsoring agencies and organizing committee invite anyone interested in the potential of the SEARCH effort, particularly students and colleagues from outside of the U.S., to participate in the discussions. We expect about 300 participants. There will be a registration fee of approximately $200 (USD). For more information about the SEARCH open science meeting, or to preregister, see the ARCUS web site at http://www.arcus.org/SEARCH/search.html. Arctic Social Sciences Program always be at the frontier of science. We need to find new questions about humans in the Arctic and new ways to answer those questions. We need to collaborate not only with natural and physical scientists but among our own disciplines as well to gain greater insight into arctic systems and change. Larger interdisciplinary programs offer opportunities for this type of work that ASSP can’t support alone; these programs include Human Dimensions of the Arctic System (HARC; see page 12); Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH), part of the Biocomplexity in the Environment Initiative (BE; see Witness Spring 2002); and the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH; see page 21). The fields of archaeology and ethnology dominate current ASSP awards—we need to expand this to other fields such as sociology, philosophy, history, economics, psychology, political science, etc. ASSP receives four times as many proposals from men as from women, and minority researchers are practically nonexistent. You can help change this by mentoring undergraduate and graduate students. Take them to the field and encourage them to do research in the Arctic. For my part, I hope to encourage students in arctic social sciences by funding more student research, by providing more support for students to participate in workshops and conferences, and by finding other programs at NSF that can fund educational activities. I encourage everyone in the research community to contact me with your ideas. I am a permanent federal hire at NSF and plan to be here for the long haul; together we can build a strong, sustainable Arctic Social Sciences Program. I look forward to it. For more information, see the ASSP web page (http://www.nsf.gov/od/opp/ arctic/social.htm), or contact Anna Kerttula at OPP (703/292-8029; fax 703/ 292-9082; [email protected]v). 20 21 SEARCH Develops Implementation Strategy A broad, interdisciplinary program, the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH; see Witness Spring 2002) seeks to understand the complex of significant, interrelated changes that have occurred in the Arctic in recent decades. To describe this complex of atmospheric, oceanic, and terrestrial changes, SEARCH uses the term Unaami, from the Yup’ik word for “tomorrow.” SEARCH is envisioned as a long-term interagency effort of observations, modeling, process studies, and applications devoted to understanding Unaami, its relation to global climate, and its impacts on ecosystems and society. Following the 2001 publication of the SEARCH Science Plan, SEARCH is beginning implementation with the funding of the first SEARCH projects and release of a draft implementation strategy. NSF announced the first major SEARCH funding opportunity, the Freshwater Initiative, in February 2002 (see page 11). Twenty-seven proposals were awarded funding totaling $30 million over five years; 18 separate projects will examine the arctic freshwater cycle, including hydrology, Arctic Ocean freshwater pathways, and freshwater fluxes to and impacts on subarctic seas. The SEARCH Science Steering Committee (SSC), Interagency Working Group (IWG), and Project Office have developed a draft implementation strategy based on the science plan, community input, and the IWG’s FY 2003 Funding Implementation Framework (see Witness Autumn 2001). Contributions to the SEARCH implementation strategy came from discussions at many community meetings and workshops, including: • the 2000 Hydrology Workshop, • the 2001 Atmospheric and Cryospheric Change in the Arctic (ACCA) Workshop, • the June 2002 Arctic Ocean Measurements and Modeling Workshop, • the September 2002 Bering Sea Workshop, • the October 2002 SEARCH Terrestrial and Marine Ecosystem Workshop, • the October 2002 SEARCH Human Dimension Workshop, and • two joint SEARCH IWG-SSC meetings. The Draft SEARCH Implementation Strategy is available for community comment on the SEARCH web site. The strategy includes a description of science questions arising from the key SEARCH hypotheses, an organization plan, a detailed list of activities required to address the SEARCH goals, priority and schedules for these activities, and summary recommendations. The activities are grouped into eight areas. These are: • Arctic System Reanalysis will assimilate data into models of various components of the arctic system to produce optimum estimates of key variables. • Detecting and Quantifying Unaami and Related Modes of Variability will use paleoclimate, historical, and archeological records as well as more recent observations to better define the scope of Unaami and its relation to other decadal modes of variability. • Social and Economic Interactions will examine the interactions of the physical and biological elements of Unaami with social and economic systems. • Large-scale Atmospheric Observatories will make large-scale atmospheric observations. • Distributed Marine Observatories will make large-scale surface atmospheric, oceanographic, sea ice, and ecosystem observations in the marine environment. • Distributed Terrestrial Observatories will make large-scale surface atmospheric, hydrological, glaciological, and ecosystem observations in the terrestrial environment. • Linkages and Global Coupling will use modeling and analysis to elucidate the connections between Unaami and global climate and the connections within the arctic system as they pertain to Unaami. • Social Response will research social and economic adaptation to climate change in the past and apply research on Unaami to economic and social concerns in the future. Given the decline of several historically important observing systems, the highest implementation priority has always been to establish a program of long-term observations. The implementation strategy establishes a three-tiered scheduling guideline. The strategy recommends that the earliest first-tier efforts include: • establishing the operational organizational structure of SEARCH, • maintaining existing observational programs of the Large-scale Atmospheric, Distributed Marine, and Distributed Terrestrial Observatories, and • beginning the Arctic System Reanalysis and elements of Detecting and Quantifying Unaami and Social and Economic Interactions. These actions will provide overarching SEARCH activities to keep future activities coordinated and spur further work. The second-tier actions focus on closing observational gaps by building up the Large-scale Atmospheric, Distributed Marine, and Distributed Terrestrial Observatories. The highest priority activities in this tier mainly seek to augment existing programs and extend observations into strategic areas that will allow us to learn the full scope of Unaami and begin to understand linkages within the arctic system and with global climate. The third-tier actions include beginning the Linkages and Global Coupling and Social Response activities. The Linkages and Global Coupling activity area will test key hypotheses by undertaking analysis and modeling efforts aimed at the various linkages within the arctic system and with global climate. These efforts will take advantage of the analysis and observational activities in tiers 1 and 2. The Social Response activity area will investigate social and economic adaptation to climate change in the past and apply this knowledge to the future. To do this, Social and Economic Interactions and Social Response will establish a system of coordinated local and traditional knowledge co-ops and community data networks to connect with communities and industries. For more information, including copies of the SEARCH science plan and draft implementation strategy, see the SEARCH web site (http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ search/) or contact SEARCH SSC chair Jamie Morison at the University of Washington (206/543-1394; fax 206/616-3142; [email protected]). Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) 22 23 Capitol Updates In November 2002, Congress approved a compromise bill to authorize NSF and double its budget over five years, with the last two increases contingent on evaluations of the agency’s progress toward management goals. Authorization bills are intended to provide guidance to the appropriations process, when actual funding levels are determined (see below). The president signed the National Science Foundation Authorization Act of 2002, P.L. 107-368 (see Witness Spring 2002) on 19 December. The compromise bill, which includes language from several NSF-related bills, authorizes an NSF budget of: • $5.5 billion for FY ’03, • $6.4 billion for FY ’04, • $7.4 billion for FY ’05, • $8.5 billion for FY ’06, and • $9.8 billion for FY ’07. The bill stipulates that FY ’06 and FY ’07 funding increases be tied to a congressional review of NSF progress toward meeting management goals in: • “strategic management of human capital,” • “competitive sourcing,” • “improved financial performance,” • “expanded electronic government,” and • “budget and performance integration.” Bill Authorizes Doubled NSF Budget by Fiscal Year 2007 In November 2002, the Bush Administration issued a draft strategic plan to guide its climate change research strategy and directions. Over 1300 scientists, government officials, and other stakeholders, both domestic and international, gathered 3–5 December at a workshop to review the draft plan and provide comments and suggestions to the Climate Change Science Program (CCSP). The CCSP accepted additional public comments on the draft “Strategic Plan for the Climate Change Science Program” into January 2003. More than 250 individuals and organizations submitted comments. The federal government has several ongoing, interrelated multiagency initiatives to address global warming and climate change. In February 2002, President Bush established the CCSP as a management structure to balance broad-based fundamental research with a near-term focus on key issues needed for policy decisions. The strategic plan is intended as a roadmap for these efforts. While acknowledging that “humans have become agents of environmental change,” the draft plan points to “inconsistencies in the observational record” and calls for more and better observations in order to discern human-induced changes against a background of natural variability. It also calls for additional research in many areas to reduce uncertainties and improve current climate models. The draft plan sets out a series of major research questions addressing how the components of the Earth’s environmental system function and are affected by human and natural forcing, and the implications for natural environments and human activities. These research areas include: • atmospheric composition, • climate variability and change, • global water and carbon cycles, • ecosystems, • land use and land cover change, • human contributions and responses to environmental change, and • grand challenges in modeling, observations, and information systems. An ad-hoc committee of the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the draft plan, the results of the workshop, and the comments received. A final version of the strategic plan is expected to be published in April 2003. For more information, see the CCSP web site (http://www.climatescience.gov). Over 1300 People Meet to Review Climate Change Plan Further, it states that in making the determination to grant the funding increases, Congress should take into consideration whether OMB certifies NSF has “overall, made successful progress toward meeting those goals.” The bill also • requires the NSF director to prepare a plan showing where and how the funds will be used during the following year, and • contains provisions strengthening National Science Board oversight capabilities as NSF’s governing body. The 2003 and 2004 Budgets The 2003 federal fiscal year began 1 October 2002 with only two of the 13 FY ’03 appropriations bills enacted; those two bills fund defense and military construction. In February 2003 the new Congress resolved the 11 deadlocked FY ’03 bills with an omnibus appropriation bill (H.J. Res. 2). The bill funds NSF at $5.3 billion, an increase of $501 million (10.4%) over FY ’02. The FY ’03 budget increases the Research and Related Activities (R&RA) account, which funds most of NSF’s research and development, to $4.1 billion, 12.7% or $458 million more than FY ’02. Polar Programs receives $319 million, an increase of $18 million (6.1%) over FY 2002. Each program within the R&RA account receives at least a 12% increase above FY ’02, except Polar Programs and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (up 3.9%). Within the R&RA account, Integrative Activities receives $147 million, up $41 million (39%). Programs supported by Integrative Activities include: • Major Research Instrumentation, • Science and Technology Centers, • Science of Learning Centers, • the Science and Technology Policy Institute, • Partnerships for Innovation, and • Disaster Response Research Teams. The president’s FY ’04 budget request, released in February 2003, provides a modest overall increase for federal spending on research and development; most of the increase would go to defense development. The president’s FY ’04 request for NSF is $5.48 billion, a 9% increase over his FY ’03 request, but considerably less than the $6.4 billion authorized under P.L. 107-368. For more information, see the NSF web site (http://www.nsf.gov), the Library of Congress legislative information web site (http://thomas.loc.gov), the American Institute of Physics web site (http: //www.aip.org), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science web site (http://www.aaas.org). 22 23 U.S. Arctic Research Commission Polar Research Board • accommodating differences in spacetime scales among ecosystems as they affect sampling design; • developing an effective archival and data dissemination strategy; • developing data products that will be useful to decision makers; • providing for periodic program review and flexibility in program design; and • establishing a stable funding base and management infrastructure. The committee was composed of Michael Roman (chair), University of Maryland; Don Bowen, Bedford Institute of Oceanography; Adria Elskus, University of Kentucky; John Goering, University of Alaska Fairbanks (emeritus); George Hunt, University of California Irvine; Seth Macinko, University of Connecticut; Donal Manahan, University of Southern California; Brenda Norcross, University of Alaska Fairbanks; Steven Picou, University of South Alabama; Tom Royer, Old Dominion University; Jennifer Ruesink, University of Washington; and Karl Turekian, Yale University. “A Century of Ecosystem Science” is available at http://www.nap.edu. For more information, see the PRB web site (http: //national-academies.org/prb), or contact PRB Executive Director Chris Elfring in Washington, DC (202/334-3479; fax 202/ 334-1477; [email protected]). PRB Guides Long-term Research Plans in Gulf of Alaska If you had funding to study an ecosystem for 100 years, what would you do? The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council faces this question as it plans the Gulf Ecosystem Monitoring (GEM) Program. In 1999, the Trustee Council set aside $120 million of the $900 million 1991 civil settlement in a trust fund for long-term support of the GEM program. As envisioned, the program’s annual budget of $5–6 million will offer an unparalleled opportunity to increase understanding of how large marine ecosystems in general, and Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska in particular, function and change over time. As part of its planning, the Trustee Council asked the Polar Research Board (PRB) for advice, and over the past two years a PRB committee has provided two interim reports and now a final volume, “A Century of Ecosystem Science: Planning LongTerm Research in the Gulf of Alaska.” The report reviews GEM draft planning documents, but more importantly it addresses general issues related to planning long-term ecosystem science, including • development of a clear conceptual foundation for the program, • early definition of a geographic scope and focus for study, • an organizational structure led by a qualified chief scientist, • involvement of stakeholders in the planning process and research, • attention to data management to ensure safekeeping and accessibility, and • periodic assessment of progress through synthesis and evaluation. Overall the committee found that GEM planners have made good efforts to involve the science community and a solid start on plans to use modeling effectively and in developing a data management strategy. Although it may seem obvious, many of these positive strides have occurred because the Trustee Council and GEM staff have set up a planning process and are allowing adequate time for input, discussion, and revision. Community involvement remains a challenge. Because GEM offers the prospect of a century-long time horizon, GEM planners have an obligation to craft a research plan that can endure over time. The committee hopes the GEM plan will lead to a core set of measurements that can be taken consistently and indefinitely, as well as some flexibility to adjust to changes in conceptual understanding and research interests. Some of the elements that contribute to successful long-term science programs include: • clearly defining program goals and anticipated management products; • recognizing the differences between physical and biological monitoring; The U.S. Arctic Research Commission (USARC) continues its efforts to assess survey needs, particularly the need for submarine surveys, toward defining the boundaries of the arctic continental shelf under Article 76 of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. In the past several months, representatives of the USARC met with several groups on this issue, including: •researchers from the northeast U.S., •an interagency meeting at the State Department, •a representative of the National Security Council, and •the Danish Hydrographic Office. USARC Promotes Arctic Research on Many Fronts In addition, USARC representatives attended multiple meetings to address other arctic research issues, including: •testifying on arctic initiatives before the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy; •exploring the use of high endurance geophysical mapping autonomous undersea vehicles to replace the mapping done by SCICEX (see Witness Autumn 2001); •discussing site surveys for Arctic Ocean drilling planned to begin in late 2003 under the Joint European Ocean Drilling Initiative; •assisting the Arctic Icebreaker Coordinating Committee (AICC; see page 14) in the formation of a working group, headed by Larry Mayer (University of New Hampshire), to oversee operation and data availability of SWATH mapping sonar on the USCGC Healy; and • attending the planning workshop to discuss the new strategic plan for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (see page 22). For more information, see the new USARC web site (http://www.arctic.gov), or contact USARC Executive Director Garry Brass in Arlington, VA (800/ AURORAB or 703/525-0111; fax 703/ 525-0114; [email protected]v). 24 25 Arctic Policy Ministers from the eight member countries of the Arctic Council (see Witness Spring 2002), together with representatives from the council’s six permanent participants, which represent arctic indigenous populations, gathered 9–10 October in Saariselka, Finland, for the Third Ministerial Meeting of the Arctic Council. The meeting, hosted by Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, was the culmination of Finland’s two-year chairmanship of the council and set the stage for the coming two years under Icelandic leadership. Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky led the U.S. delegation, stressing U.S. commitment to the council and praising the forum as an excellent example of the voluntary partnerships the U.S. championed at the 2002 United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. The foreign ministers of Canada, Iceland, and Sweden participated in the Third Ministerial meeting. Iceland’s Plans In assuming chairmanship of the council, Iceland announced that it would focus the council’s attention on improving the lives of arctic residents through enhanced communications infrastructure and support for economic and social development initiatives. In support of these aims, Iceland will: • develop an assessment of human development in the region, • sponsor an international conference on information technology in the Arctic, and • host Arctic Science Summit Week (see page 26) in spring 2004. Iceland also intends to maintain the council’s commitment to environmental protection and to work with member countries and permanent participants to facilitate the successful completion of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA; see Witness Winter 2000/2001). New AMAP Findings Immediately prior to the ministerial meeting, the council’s Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP; see Witness Spring 2002) hosted the second International Symposium on Environmental Pollution of the Arctic from 1–4 October in Rovaniemi, Finland. A followup to the first AMAP symposium in 1997, the forum reviewed changes in levels of contaminants such as persistent organic pollutants (POPs), heavy metals (mercury, lead, and cadmium), and radionuclides and culminated in the presentation of a report entitled Arctic Pollution 2002. The report summarized evidence that: • Most pollution reaches the Arctic via long-range transport. • The Arctic’s unique geographical features, food webs, and cultures make the region particularly vulnerable to the accumulation and effects of contaminants. • The routes and mechanisms by which contaminants reach the Arctic are strongly influenced by climate variability and global climate change. • Levels of some POPs are decreasing in most species and media as their release is reduced but are declining slowly in marine biota due to large oceanic reservoirs. • Certain regions and species in the Arctic have elevated levels of heavy metals. • Levels of radionuclides in the Arctic are generally declining but remain of concern. The report identifies the Inuit populations of Greenland and Canada as facing potentially hazardous exposure to contaminants because of their high intake of marine mammals. The AMAP Secretariat emphasized that the overall health benefits of traditional diets to indigenous people of the Arctic currently outweigh the risks. The Arctic Council supports continued monitoring of levels of contaminants in traditional foods and their effects on human health. During its chairmanship, Iceland will use the AMAP report as a roadmap for “environmental threats to be faced” by the council. Based on the report, a number of members hoped that the council could add its voice to those calling for a global reduction of mercury emissions. Some members also suggested that the council advocate adding more substances in current use (brominated flame-retardants and some pesticides) to the POPs banned by the Stockholm Convention. Interim Report from ACIA The U.S. presented interim results of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA; see Witness Spring 2000). The ministers were concerned by the ongoing significant warming of most of the Arctic and recognized that the impacts of global climate change and increased possibilities of extreme weather events will have large consequences in the Arctic. Norway’s State Secretary Kim Traavik invited all Arctic Council ministers to an inter-sessional meeting on climate change in Svalbard in August of 2003. He asserted that policymakers should not wait for the ACIA results and policy recommendations to be presented at the Fourth Ministerial Meeting in 2004. The foreign ministers from Canada and Sweden as well as the representative from Russia accepted Norway’s invitation on the spot. For more information, see the Arctic Council web site (http://www.arcticcouncil.org), or contact Sally Brandel at the Department of State in Washington, DC (202/647-3264; fax 202/647-4353; [email protected]). Iceland Takes Helm of Arctic Council The members of the Arctic Council are Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden, and the U.S. The Permanent Participants of the Arctic Council include the: • Association of Indigenous Minorities of the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation, • Inuit Circumpolar Conference, • Saami Council, • Aleut International Association, • Arctic Athabaskan Council, and • Gwich’in Council International. The category of Permanent Participant provides for the active participation and full consultation with arctic indigenous representatives within the Arctic Council. France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom are observer countries. Currently, 18 international and nongovernmental organizations representing a variety of interests also have observer status. 24 25 International News The Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies is a nonprofit member organization that advocates on behalf of northern research, encourages the development of future researchers, and facilitates communication and cooperation. Founded in 1977, ACUNS now has 39 member institutions—Canadian universities and colleges involved in northern and arctic studies. In 2003, the Association will celebrate its 25th anniversary, with two linked international conferences in Edmonton. The triennial National Student Conference will be held 24–26 October 2003 (http://scns.onware.ca), to be followed immediately by the International Conference on Canada’s Northern Research Capacity (27–28 October). Other ACUNS activities include: • “Ethical Principles for Conduct of Research in the North,” a key international guide to northern and polar research ethics, is available in French, English, and Inuktitut in hard copy. A new edition (2003) will include a Russian translation. • The association is a member of the Council of University of the Arctic (http://www.uarctic.org) and chairs the Council’s Membership and Nominations Committee, providing a direct connection between the University of the Arctic’s activities and Canadian northern studies institutions, experts, and programs. • The Canadian Northern Studies Trust (CNST), the scholarship arm of ACUNS, was established in 1982 to encourage young scholars to undertake northern research. The trust relies upon donations from a number of sources, including the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, the Canadian Polar Commission, the Meterological Service of Canada, the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board, Arctic Cooperatives Limited, as well as anonymous donors, to provide scholarships to northerners and southerners at all levels of postsecondary education. For more information, see the ACUNS web site (http://www.cyberus.ca/~acuns), or contact ACUNS Executive Director Denis Wall in Edmonton, Alberta (613/562-0515; fax 613/562-0533; [email protected]). ACUNS Celebrates 25 Years of Northern Studies The Swedish Polar Research Secretariat is organizing a research expedition to the Beringia region in the summer of 2005 on the icebreaker Oden. The scientific focus and logistical framework for the expedition are based on interests expressed by the Swedish research community and by scientists and representatives of research organizations in Russia and the U.S. An international workshop for the design of the Beringia 2005 expedition was held in Stockholm in November 2002. A continuation and expansion of the Swedish Tundra Ecology Expeditions in 1994 and 1999 to northern Russia and the Canadian Arctic, the 2005 expedition will focus on Beringia, including the Chukotka Peninsula, Kamchatka, and Alaska, with both terrestrial and marine research. Beringia 2005 terrestrial research activities will focus on causal processes of Beringian biocomplexity, including: • biodiversity—patterns and evolution, • ecosystem trophic interactions, • migration, • biogeography—past and present, and • human dimensions. Marine research will investigate the role of the Arctic Ocean in the climate system, including: • water mass variability and circulation patterns, • atmosphere-ocean interactions, • geology and geophysics of the Arctic Ocean, • biogeochemical cycles, and • land-shelf-basin interactions. A call for proposals has been distributed among the scientific community in Sweden, and the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat will select from Swedish candidate projects in spring 2003. The secretariat • expects to give space on the expedition to a diverse group of researchers, including ecologists, geologists, and cultural researchers, • seeks to make this an international venture and to develop collaborative arrangements with arctic organizations operating in this region, and • encourages interested scientists to communicate with Swedish colleagues and to approach their own organizations toward establishing direct relations with the secretariat to work out joint agreements. Preliminary Route and Time Frames Leg 1, from the beginning of June through mid July, will include marine research during the transit from Scandinavia along the northern sea route to the Pevek/Chukotka Peninsula, but little or no station time. During leg 2, from mid July to mid August, scientists will do terrestrial research during twoto three-day visits at selected sites along the north slope of the Chukotka Peninsula, including Wrangel Island and the north slope of Alaska, possibly including St. Lawrence Island. Marine research from the ship may be possible in the area. From the beginning of July to mid August, the ship will be at selected sites on the east coasts of Kamchatka and the Chukotka Peninsula, including islands in the area. There will be short visits at sites ashore from the vessel or by air transport from Petropavlovsk and Anadyr. During July and August there will also be semipermanent camps in western Alaska and on the Chukotka Peninsula. Leg 3 of the cruise will include marine research along a transect from northern Alaska over the polar basin to Scandinavia from mid August to the end of September. For more information, see http: //www.polar.se/english/expeditions/ beringia2005, or contact scientific coordinator Magnus Tannerfeldt at the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat (magnus.- [email protected]). Oden to Undertake Beringia Expedition in 2005 32 Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 957 Anchorage, AK Arctic Research Consortium of the United States 3535 College Road Suite 101 Fairbanks, AK 99709 USA A Note From the ARCUS President Inside NSF News 4 Arctic Upper Atmosphere 5 ARCSS Program 6 Arctic Logistics 14 Arctic Natural Sciences Program 15 Arctic Social Sciences Program 18 SEARCH 21 Capitol Updates 22 U.S. Arctic Research Commission 23 Polar Research Board 23 Arctic Policy 24 International News 25 Education News 28 Calendar and Publications 31 In my note in the previous edition of Witness the Arctic, I described some of the challenges faced by Alaska Native villages and government agencies in trying to control erosion, and how arctic system research might contribute to that effort. In this column, I would like to explore a related question: do arctic system scientists and agency personnel have overlapping interests, and if so, how can they collaborate? Arctic system science addresses all aspects of the northern environment, particularly the interactions among the different natural and human components that determine how the system functions and how its influence is felt. From wildlife management to construction permits, various government agencies regulate, monitor, and otherwise work on many of the same connections that system scientists study. In some respects, the agency-scientist connection seems obvious, and some partnerships have been established. Overall, however, the links are weak or nonexistent. A variety of factors are at work. First, there are mismatches in time frame and expectations. System scientists typically take a long-term view, whereas agencies usually need to respond in the short term. System scientists are used to uncertainty, whereas agencies and their constituents may be less willing to act when the need to do so is unclear. Second, there is often a perceived cultural divide between “basic” research done in academia and the “applied” work done in government agencies. I suspect this difference is largely superficial: both sides have similar interests but little real appreciation for what the other group actually does. Third, there are few incentives for overcoming these two barriers. Both scientists and agency personnel rarely have the time or funding to make connections and explore collaborative opportunities. Where interactions do occur, they are all too often at the tail end of a project, amounting to little more than sharing of information instead of real collaboration. And yet, I think we are all missing something in not putting more effort in this direction. System science has made great strides in understanding the interactions that comprise the arctic system and in exploring the implications of those interactions and the changes they are undergoing. Agency personnel have a great deal of practical experience with the environment itself and with the people who live in and use it. Both sides stand to gain from creating real partnerships built on their complementary and mutually useful perspectives.