NOAA ENGAGES IN INTERNATIONAL POLAR SCIENCE EFFORT

March 16, 2007 — Over the next two years, NOAA will join more than 50,000 people from 63 countries at the poles as part of the fourth International Polar Year (2007-2009), the largest internationally coordinated scientific research effort ever attempted at the poles. From March 1, 2007, through March 9, 2009, scientists from across the globe will collaborate on expeditions and research projects to monitor the health of the polar regions and assess their role in and impact on global climate systems. They will work on more than 228 projects both out in the cold polar elements, and in universities, laboratories and observatories around the world studying everything from the effect of solar radiation on the polar atmosphere to the exotic marine life beneath the Arctic ice.

NOAA has been involved in a number of the major international science initiatives in polar regions since the first International Polar Year in 1881 to 1884 and all have had a major influence in increasing our understanding of global processes in these important areas. IPY 2007-2009 is expected to create a similar legacy of accomplishments.

Why Are the Poles so Important?
Those of us who live in the warmer regions of the Earth should be concerned about what is happening at the poles because they are a critical part of the Earth system.

Polar regions both respond to and drive changes elsewhere on the planet. They play a critical role maintaining global ocean circulation and help to regulate the Earth’s surface temperature by reflecting solar energy.

Changes at the poles also have significant impacts on the rest of the globe. Warming polar temperatures and melting ice can lead to sea-level rise, threatening coastal communities and ecosystems all across the globe. Polar changes can alter global surface temperatures and ocean circulation, which are closely connected with regional climate conditions.

The polar regions hold unique information about the Earth’s past climate history, and are growing in economic and geopolitical importance. The exploration of new scientific frontiers in the polar regions also will lead to new discoveries, insights and theories of interest to us all.

“The next two years will be a new era of discovery, understanding and enlightenment in two of the world’s least understood areas. The benefits will be far-reaching and long lasting and I am proud NOAA is a part of this incredible effort,” said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.

Because of their remoteness and harsh nature, less is known about how polar regions operate and interact with the rest of the globe. Fortunately, IPY provides an opportunity to increase our knowledge by pooling together the resources from many countries, allowing for an efficient and cost-effective way to study these remote regions of the Earth.

International Polar Year 2007-2009
It has been fifty years since the last IPY and advances in instrumentation and technology (e.g., Earth observation satellites, autonomous vehicles and molecular biology techniques), the realization that polar regions are critical in the changing global climate system, and linkages among international research organizations all lend themselves toward better understanding of polar systems.

This IPY runs for two years — from March 2007 to March 2009 — to ensure that researchers get the opportunity to work in both polar regions or work summer and winter if they wish. Likewise, this IPY has a much broader, multidisciplinary approach than previous IPYs, incorporating physical, biological sciences and social sciences, as well as a large educational component.

The objectives of this IPY are to explore new frontiers in polar sciences, improve our understanding of the critical role of the Earth’s polar regions in global processes, create a legacy of infrastructure and data for future generations of scientists, expand international cooperation, engage the public in polar discovery, and help attract and educate the next generation of scientists and engineers.

IPY 2007-2009 is being sponsored by the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization and the International Council for Science. In the United States, the National Academy of Sciences has played a key role and its Polar Research Board serves as the U.S. National Committee for IPY. The National Science Foundation is the lead U.S. agency for IPY. Other U.S. federal agencies involved in IPY include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Geological Survey, National Institutes of Health, Smithsonian, and many others. NOAA is proud to work with both the national and international scientific community in this effort.

NOAA IPY 2007-2009 Efforts
NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, as well as NOAA programs across the Agency are using existing resources to conduct IPY-related activities.

“NOAA is taking advantage of the excitement and the opportunity to build upon its polar framework to continue to provide quality science for the benefit of society,” said Kathy Crane, a manager in the NOAA Arctic Research Program.

NOAA plans to explore the polar oceans, continue to monitor and observe the polar regions, and work with international partners to expand the network of Arctic observatories. A list of NOAA’s IPY activities is at: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/ipy-noaa.html. In all, the Agency has 11 IPY-related projects planned focusing on four themes: exploration, observation, modeling and outreach.

Many of these activities are already part of NOAA’s ongoing array of long-term polar projects since it is one of the few agencies that has a long history of working at the poles. "NOAA has had footprints in the snow and ice at both poles for decades," said Lautenbacher at the U.S. IPY 2007-2009 opening ceremony held at the National Academies of Science in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 26, 2007. "Our people are in the Arctic and Antarctic 365 days a year. This year is the 50th anniversary of NOAA collecting observations at the South Pole."

Lautenbacher also mentioned that the current IPY projects will contribute new data to Earth observing efforts, such as the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, and will advance understanding and predictability of the polar environment in NOAA’s mission areas.

NOAA Arctic Exploration
The NOAA Arctic Research Program, (Climate Program Office) together with the Russian Academy of Sciences, will carry out a census of marine life in the little known waters north of the United States and Russia in 2008. The expedition, from the sea ice to the sea floor below, will provide background observations necessary for the monitoring of changing ecosystems in the Pacific Region of the Arctic.

The joint venture is part of the ongoing Russian American Long-term Census of the Arctic program. The 2008 work builds off previous expeditions funded jointly by the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and the National Science Foundation.

NOAA Polar Observations
NOAA will take measurements from the ocean, atmosphere and living marine resources in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions to assess the causes and impacts of recent changes in the Pacific and Arctic oceans, the NOAA Office of Climate Program is working with its Russian partners to carry out ocean observations, including ice cover, necessary for detecting environmental change in the Bering and Chukchi Seas and relating physical change to marine ecosystem response.

According to Arctic researcher James Overland of the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, “Changes in sea ice extent in the Bering Sea over the last few years have actually supported the Pollock fishery, but worked against the crabs and other animals on the bottom of the sea.”

Strategically located, long-term atmospheric observatories are being established around the Arctic to calibrate and validate satellite sensors and improve the reliability of climate models. The NOAA observatory in Barrow, Alaska, for example, will continue its 126 year legacy of measurements initiated in the first IPY in 1881 with expanded trace gas, aerosol and radiation measurements initiated in 1973; while two new observatories are being expanded in Eureka, Canada, Summit, Greenland and Tiksi, Russia.

Routine observations of ozone will continue at Barrow, Alaska; Summit Station, Greenland and at the South Pole during IPY. These projects are continuations of the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory’s ongoing stratospheric ozone depletion measurement programs. According to Russ Schnell, director of the NOAA Global Monitoring Division Observatory Operations at ESRL, “NOAA’s five baseline observatories monitor 30 to 40 different species of gases and take a total of 18,000 measurements each year.”

For living marine resources, NOAA scientists will spend 35 days on a research ship in 2007 collecting the scientific information needed to detect, monitor and predict the effects of harvesting and associated activities on target, dependent and related species and populations of the Antarctic marine living resources and the ecosystem(s) of which they are a part.

NOAA Prediction and Modeling in the Polar Regions
As part of the Short-term Arctic Predictability study, NOAA scientists are studying ways to improve predictions of weather, sea ice, ocean wave and land surface processes in the Arctic region in the 3-90 day time range, with special emphasis on improving forecast guidance for high impact events in the 3-14 day lead time range.

NOAA will also participate in IPY-related studies that improve NOAA’s ability to measure the state of the polar regions with satellites and to expand the use of these data in numerical weather prediction systems.

NOAA’s top climate modelers at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, in Princeton, N.J., will analyze and model the physical processes and connections between the Arctic and the rest of the globe as part of its Arctic Modeling effort.

Polar Data, Outreach, and Decision Support
NOAA's fundamental data management responsibilities will be to securely archive IPY datasets and ensure that these and relevant polar data are easily accessible for current and future users. NOAA also intends to build and maintain an Arctic view of climate variability and change that will serve decision makers with information products.

This effort will include establishing a multi-year Regional Integrated Sciences & Assessments center in Alaska and a Regional Climate Center to address regionally important climate issues to aid policy- and decision-making. NOAA also plans to contribute to the Arctic Council climate-related assessment tasks during IPY by providing expertise and financial support within available resources.

The NOAA Climate Literacy Working Group, based at the Climate Program Office, is coordinating Agency-wide IPY education and outreach activities with the NOAA Office of Education. Several formal and informal education initiatives are focusing primarily on teacher professional development and science center or museum exhibitions. NOAA also has designed, produced and will distribute its new IPY educational kit to teachers at the National Science Teachers Association Meeting in St. Louis, Mo. in April of 2007. “IPY allows NOAA to join with many other organizations to take a snapshot in time of the conditions at the Poles to be a benchmark for future research. NOAA also sees this as an opportunity to engage and educate the public about this climatically important part of the world, “according to John Calder, Director of NOAA's Arctic Research Program.

NOAA will continue its long history of dedicated work in the polar regions. Daniel Endres, who has lived and worked in Barrow, Alaska, for 23 years and is station chief at NOAA’s Pt. Barrow, Alaska Observatory, has seen the changes that are occurring in the poles first hand and is proud to be a part of NOAA’s efforts in these regions. Endres said that “projects [and people] may come and go, but we will keep on doing the quality work that NOAA has been doing [at the observatory] over the last few decades.”

Relevant Web Sites
NOAA home page

NOAA Arctic Theme Page

NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratory

NOAA Fisheries' Antarctic Marine Living Resources Program

Media Contact:
Jana Goldman, NOAA Research, (301) 713-1123