Despite the fact that summer 2009 had more sea ice than in 2007 or 2008, scientists are seeing drastic changes in the region from just five years ago and at rates faster than anticipated. The findings were presented today in the annual update of the Arctic Report Card, a collaborative effort of 71 national and international scientists.

"The Arctic is a special and fragile place on this planet," said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. "Climate change is happening faster in the Arctic than any other place on Earth - and with wide-ranging consequences. When I visited the northern corners of Alaska's Arctic region earlier this year, I saw an area abundant with natural resources, diverse wildlife, proud local and native peoples - and a most uncertain future. This year's Arctic Report Card underscores the urgency of reducing greenhouse gas pollution and adapting to climate changes already under way."

Among the changes highlighted in the 2009 update to the report card were:

A change in large scale wind patterns affected by the loss of summer sea ice,

The replacement of multi-year sea ice by first-year sea ice,

Warmer and fresher water in the upper ocean linked to new ice-free areas,

A continued loss of the Greenland ice sheet,

Less snow in North America and increased runoff in Siberia, and

The effect of the loss of sea ice on Arctic plant, animal, and fish species.

The Arctic Report Card is an annual assessment that was introduced by NOAA's Climate Program Office in 2006 and is an example of the suite of climate services to which NOAA contributes.

Scientific assessments are key to informing our understanding of climate – how and why it is changing and what the changing conditions mean to lives and livelihoods. The Arctic Report Card established a baseline of conditions in the region at the beginning of the 21st century and the annual updates track and monitor the often quickly-changing conditions in the Arctic. Using a color-coding system of red to indicate consistent evidence of warming and yellow to indicate there are mixed signals about warming from climate indicators and species, the report card is updated annually in October and tracks Arctic data in six categories: atmosphere, sea ice, biology, ocean, land, and conditions in Greenland.

"The Arctic we see today is very different from the Arctic we saw even five years ago," said Jackie Richter-Menge of the USACE Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H. and the report's chief technical editor and contributing author. "It's a warmer place with less thick and more mobile sea ice, warmer and fresher ocean water, and increased stress on caribou, reindeer, polar bears and walrus in some regions."

The 2009 update to the report card reflects the contributions of an international team of 71 researchers from countries that include the United States of America, Canada, Belgium, China, Denmark, Japan, The Netherlands, Russia, and the United Kingdom.

The Report Card can be found at http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard

Source: NOAA

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In early May residents of Tanana, a small Alaska Native village situated where the Yukon and Tanana Rivers meet, watched anxiously as reports of the destruction upriver reached them. When crushing ice and swollen floodwaters reached their village on May 12th, the force damaged homes, dislodged outhouses and fuel storage tanks, and destroyed personal property.

Charter planes evacuated about a quarter of the population - mostly elders, mothers and children, and disabled persons - to Fairbanks. Unlike some Yukon River villages, Tanana offers no shelter facility on high ground to which they could flee.

When the waters began to recede, more than 35 homes had sustained damage; 2 of them required major repairs. Soon Tanana became not only a confluence of rivers, but of helping hands. The Tanana Tribal Council facilitated the early recovery efforts. The Tanana Chiefs Conference worked with Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management personnel to coordinate the shelter and emergency needs of the evacuees, working with the Fairbanks Food Bank and the American Red Cross.

Mayor Donna May Folger didn't evacuate with the other women. Instead, she stayed in Tanana, helping with communication and planning. The Tanana Chiefs Conference also sent workers to help with clean-up. FEMA paid for the transportation of volunteers from the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC) to Tanana where they have led the rebuilding effort with work teams under the leadership of site manager Mike Tigchelaar and Tanana construction coordinator Arnie Gustafson.

Repairs of many types have been needed. Electricians inspected homes to identify necessary repairs. Damaged flooring was stripped and new flooring installed. Walls have been repaired, repainted, and re-paneled. The goal is to have damaged homes restored to livable condition before the winter cold sets in. With compassion and with pragmatism driven by the weather-imposed deadline, volunteers from CRWRC work diligently, wherever and however they have a skill that's needed.

Volunteers continue to hammer, saw, sand, and re-wire. The work will not be finished until, as Alaska Native Gloria Albert put it, "I'll be happy when I get to move back into my own home."

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Recent observations have suggested that the air above Alaska may already hold the first signs of a regional increase in greenhouse gas emissions that could contribute to climate change around the globe.

The Coast Guard personnel at Kodiak, Alaska, make ready a C-130 aircraft for a Coast Guard flight carrying NOAA instruments north to the Arctic Circle. Credit: NOAA

To learn more about the region's emissions, NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., has teamed up with the U.S. Coast Guard at Kodiak Island. The two partners are flying NOAA air-sampling devices aboard a Coast Guard C-130 aircraft conducting flights over the state through November.

Scientists will search for natural sources of methane and carbon dioxide - the two most important heat-trapping gases - as well as methane sources from human activities, such as oil drilling in Prudhoe Bay. Gathered over three seasons, the data will help NOAA map out natural emissions sites, estimate their outflow, and set benchmarks for future changes in a warming world.

"North of the Brooks Range, the tundra is not yet melting, but south of the range, partial melting is already occurring. The south will give us clues to what's likely to happen north of the range in the coming years," said Colm Sweeney, of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL). Sweeney is head of a NOAA aircraft project that samples greenhouse gases around the country. NOAA ESRL monitors the gases from 60 sites worldwide.

Billions of tons of carbon are buried in the frozen Arctic tundra, now heating up because of human-caused climate change. In the future, will the warming tundra dry out, exhaling large amounts of heat-holding carbon dioxide? Or will melting ice form pools and lakes, allowing microbes to feast on buried organic matter, burping up huge amounts of methane? Only the data will tell, say the scientists.

"It's important to locate natural sources and measure how much methane and carbon dioxide are being released now so we can watch for signs of increasing emissions," said Sweeney. "Methane is 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, though its lifetime in the atmosphere is significantly shorter. We're especially interested in those sources." When related climate affects are taken into account, methane's overall climate impact is nearly half that of carbon dioxide.

Earlier research documented large "bubbles" of methane near Arctic lakes. Satellite sensors revealed similar lakes in other areas, but whether those lakes produce methane is unknown. Last year research vessels in the Arctic Ocean observed methane vents releasing the gas from the ocean floor. Perhaps these vents have been there all along, undiscovered, say the scientists, or they could have developed recently.

"Recent observations could be isolated cases or part of a vast regional change in emissions that could accelerate climate warming to a more dangerous pace. We don't know yet," said Sweeney. "We're eager to find out."

"So far profiles north of the Brooks range indicate significant enhancements in methane emissions near the surface," said Sweeney, "but it's uncertain whether those are local emissions from human activities or outgassing from natural sources."

Coast Guard Arctic flights using C-130 maritime surveillance aircraft began in the fall of 2007. When the base in Kodiak offered to carry air-sampling instruments on the twice-monthly flights out of Kodiak over the Brooks Range to Barrow in the Arctic Circle, NOAA scientists jumped at the chance. The flights will typically stop in Galena, south of the mountain range, and at Kivalina on the north coast, ending up at Prudhoe Bay. NOAA has operated an atmospheric observatory at Barrow, about 200 miles west of Prudhoe, for decades.

Last March, NOAA scientists replaced one of the plane's windows with a plate for air inlets. The inlets lead to onboard instruments that measure greenhouse gases and ozone in real time. One instrument will measure methane and carbon dioxide every other second. Air is also stored in glass flasks that are sent back to the lab in Boulder. There scientists will analyze the air to understand the distribution of almost 40 other pollutants and trace gases.

During a recent flight, a small, driftable buoy was released from the plane. The buoy is part of the U.S. Interagency Arctic Buoy Program which collects meteorological information, tracks polar ice flows, and measures upper ocean heat content. Agencies participating in the program include NOAA, the Coast Guard, and the U.S. Navy.

The Coast Guard flights "test capabilities, build Arctic operational expertise, identify challenges, survey sea ice and monitor vessel traffic in U.S. Arctic waters," according to a Coast Guard statement.

Source: NOAA

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