International Arctic Systems for Observing the Atmosphere: An International Polar Year Legacy Consortium

Abstract

G lobal climate change is visibly and tangibly manifested through the Arctic cryospheric system: sea ice loss, earlier spring snowmelts, thawing permafrost, retreating glaciers, and coastal erosion. While not as visibly manifest, the role of the atmosphere is also a critical component in determining the trajectory of the Arctic system. The atmosphere not only drives change, but is reciprocally being modified through a complex web of feedbacks, and is the fast-track mechanism for the transport of energy and moisture through the global system that links climate and weather. For decades, it has been recognized that fundamental components of the atmospheric system such as clouds, atmospheric trace gases, aerosols, and atmosphere-surface exchange processes compose some of the major uncertainties that limit the diagnostic or predictive skill of coupled atmosphere-ice-ocean-terrestrial models (IPCC 2013, chapter 9). Arctic nations have responded in recent decades by establishing  A micrometeorological tower in Tiksi, Russia is used to determine the atmospheric-surface energy balance. (Photo credit: Vasily Kustov)

Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX): towards a holistic understanding of the feedbacks and interactions in the land–atmosphere–ocean–society continuum in the northern Eurasian region

“…3.5). At the moment, there is a serious gap in our knowledge on tropospheric composition and chemistry over Russia and China, with particularly few observation programs being active over Siberia (Crutzen et al, 1998;Ramonet et al, 2002;Paris et al, 2008;Kozlova et al, 2008;Uttal et al, 2015, Paris et al, 2010aSasakawa et al, 2010;Chi et al, 2013;Saeki et al, 2013;Ding et al, 2013a, b;Berchet et al, 2015;Heimann et al, 2014). There is thus an urgent need for harmonized, coordinated and comprehensive greenhouse gas, trace gas, and aerosol in situ observations over northern Eurasia and China (longterm transport aspect) comparable to European and circumpolar data observations.…”

“…de Laat et al, 2009;Stavrakou et al, 2012Stavrakou et al, , 2014, possibly together with sub-orbital airborne measurements of relevant species. Satellite-measured AOD has been successfully applied to obtain information on ground-based aerosol mass concentrations (PM 2.5 ) (Xu et al, 2015;van Donkelaar et al, 2015). In addition, the use of multiple satellite instruments, with different characteristics, is proposed to obtain more accurate information on the transport of aerosols and trace gases and their vertical distribution (e.g.…”

“…Emissions from forest fires (van der Werf et al, 2006;Sofiev et al, 2013) and from agricultural fires in southern Siberia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine (Korontzi et al, 2006) in spring and summer are large sources of trace gases such as carbon monoxide (Nédélec et al, 2005;Konovalov et al, 2014) as well as aerosol particles (Konovalov et al, 2015). Aerosols emitted by forest fires are of particular interest, since the strength of this source type depends on both climate change and human behaviour (Pechony and Shindell, 2010), and since particles emitted by these fires have potentially large radiative effects over Eurasia (Randerson et al, 2006).…”

“…Aerosols emitted by forest fires are of particular interest, since the strength of this source type depends on both climate change and human behaviour (Pechony and Shindell, 2010), and since particles emitted by these fires have potentially large radiative effects over Eurasia (Randerson et al, 2006). We need comprehensive top-down emissions estimates, using inverse modelling constrained by satellite observations, in order to provide quantitative information on the source strength of aerosols and trace gases emitted by open fires.…”

Microwave signatures of ice hydrometeors from ground-based observations above Summit, Greenland

“…The ICECAPS project will remain at Summit until at least 2018, thus providing a comprehensive data set and analyses of the atmosphere over central Greenland. Additionally, ICE-CAPS is expanding the network of past and existing highlatitude atmospheric suites (i.e., Eureka, Canada and Barrow, Alaska, Ny-Ålesund) already helping to characterize Arctic atmospheric and cloud processes (Shupe et al, 2011;Uttal et al, 2015).…”