HR: 1340h
AN: C13B-0270    [Abstracts]
TI: Monitoring Climate Variability and Change in Northern Alaska: Updates to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Climate and Permafrost Monitoring Network
AU: * Urban, F E
EM: furban@usgs.gov
AF: U.S. Geological Survey, MS 980 Box 25046, DFC, Denver, CO 80225 United States
AU: Clow, G D
EM: clow@usgs.gov
AF: U.S. Geological Survey, MS 980 Box 25046, DFC, Denver, CO 80225 United States
AU: Meares, D C
EM: dmeares@blm.gov
AF: Bureau of Land Management, 1150 University Avenue, Fairbanks, AK 99709 United States
AB: Observations of long-term climate and surficial geological processes are sparse in most of the Arctic, despite the fact that this region is highly sensitive to climate change. Instrumental networks that monitor the interplay of climatic variability and geological/cryospheric processes are a necessity for documenting and understanding climate change. Improvements to the spatial coverage and temporal scale of Arctic climate data are in progress. The USGS, in collaboration with The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) currently maintains two types of monitoring networks in northern Alaska: (1) A 15 site network of continuously operating active-layer and climate monitoring stations, and (2) a 21 element array of deep bore-holes in which the thermal state of deep permafrost is monitored. Here, we focus on the USGS Alaska Active Layer and Climate Monitoring Network (AK-CLIM). These 15 stations are deployed in longitudinal transects that span Alaska north of the Brooks Range, (11 in The National Petroleum Reserve Alaska, (NPRA), and 4 in The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)). An informative overview and update of the USGS AK-CLIM network is presented, including insight to current data, processing and analysis software, and plans for data telemetry. Data collection began in 1998 and parameters currently measured include air temperature, soil temperatures (5-120 cm), snow depth, incoming and reflected short-wave radiation, soil moisture (15 cm), wind speed and direction. Custom processing and analysis software has been written that calculates additional parameters such as active layer thaw depth, thawing-degree-days, albedo, cloudiness, and duration of seasonal snow cover. Data from selected AK-CLIM stations are now temporally sufficient to begin identifying trends, anomalies, and inter-annual variability in the climate of northern Alaska.
DE: 9315 Arctic region
DE: 3394 Instruments and techniques
DE: 4215 Climate and interannual variability (3309)
DE: 1694 Instruments and techniques
SC: Cryosphere [C]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting