Review of science issues, deployment strategy, and status for the ARM North Slope of AlaskaAdjacent Arctic Ocean climate research site

• Main Authors: K. Stamnes, R. G. Ellingson, J. A. Curry, J. E. Walsh, B. D. Zak
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1999
• Subjects: Antarctic; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; The Antarctic; albedo; Antarc*; Climate change; Global warming; north slope; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.513.473; http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/currydoc/Stamnes_JC12.pdf

Recent climate modeling results point to the Arctic as a region that is particularly sensitive to global climate change. The Arctic warming predicted by the models to result from the expected doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide is two to three times the predicted mean global warming, and considerably greater than the warming predicted for the Antarctic. The North Slope of Alaska–Adjacent Arctic Ocean (NSA–AAO) Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program is designed to collect data on temperature-ice-albedo and water vapor–cloud–radiation feedbacks, which are believed to be important to the predicted enhanced warming in the Arctic. The most important scientific issues of Arctic, as well as global, significance to be addressed at the NSA–AAO CART site are discussed, and a brief overview of the current approach toward, and status of, site development is provided. ARM radiometric and remote sensing instrumen-tation is already deployed and taking data in the perennial Arctic ice pack as part of the SHEBA (Surface Heat