Toward a Predictive Model of Arctic Coastal Retreat in a Warming Climate, Beaufort Sea, Alaska

• Main Authors: Wobus, Cameron W., Anderson, Robert S., Overeem, Irina
• Other Authors: COLORADO UNIV AT BOULDER COOPERATIVE INST FOR RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: Physical and Dynamic Oceanography; Test Facilities; Equipment and Methods; Thermodynamics; *MARINE CLIMATOLOGY; *BEAUFORT SEA; ALASKA; METEOROLOGICAL DATA; EROSION; OCEANOGRAPHIC DATA; SURFACE TEMPERATURE; LAND AREAS; SEA ICE; ARCTIC REGIONS; OCEAN SURFACE; COASTAL REGIONS; DATA ACQUISITION; PRUDHOE BAY; BARROW BAY; NPR-A(NATIONAL PETROLEUM RESERVE ALASKA); SST(SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE); Arctic; Barrow; Beaufort Sea; Climate change; Prudhoe Bay; Sea ice; Toward a Predictive Model of Arctic Coastal Retreat in a Warming Climate, Beaufort Sea Alaska; Toward a predictive model of Arctic coastal retreat in a warming climate, Beaufort Sea, Alaska; Alaska
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA532776; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA532776

The long-term goal of this project is to understand the environmental drivers of extremely rapid coastal erosion in the Arctic, so that we can begin to predict how present and future climate change might influence coastal evolution. Our study is focused on the Beaufort Sea coast within the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska (NPR-A), approximately halfway between Barrow and Prudhoe Bay. We are focusing our efforts on collecting empirical data that will help us to develop process-based models of coastal change. Toward this end, we are monitoring erosion processes using time-lapse photography, collecting meteorological and oceanographic data from sites along the coast, and archiving climatic and geographic data from the past few decades to identify trends in coastline position through time. We anticipate that our project will help us to predict future patterns of coastal change as a function of projected changes in sea surface temperature, sea ice conditions, and changes in land surface temperatures. The original document contains color images.