2011 - Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences ...

Milestone 1. Add additional glacier photograph or other analog
material to the collections to the Analog Collection in collaboration
with NOAA NGDC and the NOAA CDMP program.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has
been digitizing analog cryospheric material as part of the
NOAA Climate Data Modernization Program (CDMP),
which ends this year. CMDP began in 2002 with one project,
the Glacier Photo Digitization Project; 13,478 glacier
images are now available online. In 2004 a second project
began to digitize Dehn Ice Charts. More than 7,000 charts
were digitized and more than 4,000 are available online.
More photographs of glaciers were scanned and added
this year to the Glacier Photograph Collection (http://
nsidc.org/data/g00472.html). Photographs of glaciers in
the McMurdo Dry Valleys region of Antarctica have been
added as well, not through scanning, but in a collaborative
Data Conservancy project with Johns Hopkins University.
While the valleys themselves are notably ice-free, a
number of glaciers terminate in the valleys, some acting as
outlets to the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.
NSIDC-03 World Data Center
for Glaciology, Boulder—Current Programs
FEDERAL LEAD: CARL GROENEVELD
CIRES LEAD: JANE BEITLER
NOAA Goal 2: Climate
Project Goal: Improve understanding of recent and unexpected
changes in polar regions including lower sea-level atmospheric
pressure, increased air temperature over most of the Arctic,
lower temperatures over eastern North America, reduced sea ice
cover, thawing permafrost
and changes in precipitation
patterns.
Milestone 1. Maintain and
update existing research
data sets (e.g., the Sea
Ice Index). Publish new
data sets and improve
data-visualization tools,
including Google Earth.
Make research information
available, acquire and
catalog cryospheric materials
in the NSIDC library,
and maintain NSIDC’s
analog datasets.
NOAA@NSIDC has
developed and will maintain
a data inventory for
the Science Ice Exercise
(SCICEX) program—a U.S.
Navy Submarine Arctic
Science Program that utilizes
nuclear submarines to
collect scientific data about
the Arctic Ocean. NOAA@
NSIDC also published
120 CIRES Annual Report 2011
Figure1. This image from MASIE of
the Greenland Sea on Nov. 29, 2010,
shows the location of the sea-ice edge
with more precision than other sea-ice
products. MASIE images are compiled
from sea-ice charts and other data
sources, and are available daily in an
easy-to-use format.
a new data set relevant to developing year-round transportation
capabilities in the Arctic Ocean: Arctic Marine
Transportation Program 1979–1986. The U.S. Maritime
Administration sponsored this multi-year program to
define environmental conditions in the Bering, Chukchi and
Beaufort Seas; to obtain data to improve design criteria for
ice-worthy ships and offshore structures; and to demonstrate
the operational feasibility of commercial icebreaking
ships along possible future Arctic marine routes.
NOAA@NISDC published a new data set inventorying
the network of boreholes equipped for long-term permafrost
temperature observations. The data set, IPA-IPY Thermal
State of Permafrost (TSP) Snapshot Borehole Inventory,
Version 1.0, consists of an inventory of boreholes established
during the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007–2009
by the International Permafrost Association (IPA) under the
Thermal State of Permafrost (TSP) Project #50.
NOAA@NSIDC published a new data set that provides
measurements of mass balance, surface velocity and surface
elevation of the South Dome of Barnes Ice Cap. The data
set, Barnes Ice Cap South Dome Trilateration Net Survey
Data 1970–1984, contains survey measurements of a network
of 43 stakes along a 10-km flow line on the northeast
flank of the south dome of the Barnes Ice Cap.
NSIDC and the U.S. National Ice Center (NIC) collaborated
on a new daily sea ice analysis product: The Multisensor
Analyzed Sea Ice Extent–Northern Hemisphere (MASIE-
NH). Working with NIC, NSIDC developed MASIE-NH
to meet a need for a more accurate daily product that is
easy to use like the Sea Ice Index. MASIE lets you view and
download Northern Hemisphere–wide sea-ice coverage
for latest day and the last four weeks; sea ice coverage by
region; and a file of sea-ice extent in square kilometers for
the entire Northern Hemisphere and by region for the last
four weeks, updated daily.
In cooperation with the International Arctic Research
Center (IARC) at the University of Alaska, NOAA@NSIDC
is providing an access point and standard metadata for the
Sea Ice Experiment: Dynamic Nature of the Arctic (SEDNA)
project. The SEDNA data collection is unique in that several
ice-thickness data sets were inter-calibrated and coordinated
with monitoring of the ice pack strain-rate (horizontal
deformation) and measurements of internal ice stress.
CSV-07 Climate Services
n PSD-05 Experimental Regional Climate Services
n PSD-07 Experimental Climate Data and Web Services
PSD-05 Experimental Regional Climate Services
FEDERAL LEADS: ROGER PULWARTY AND ROBERT WEBB
CIRES LEADS: JOSEPH BARSUGLI , XIAOWEI QUAN
AND KLAUS WOLTER
NOAA Goal 3: Weather and Water
Project Goal: Couple enhanced observations and research in
regions of strong climate variability and societal impact with
analysis of past data and improved modeling. Determine factors
influencing the occurrence of extreme events. Improve the
diagnosis, modeling and prediction of the regional consequences
of climate change and variability on timescales of days
to decades on hydrological variables of relevance to society.