Expressions of Intent for International Polar Year 2007-2008 Activities

Expression of Interest Details

PROPOSAL INFORMATION

CANADA #87:Reconstructing the surface circulation of the Arctic Ocean Basin during the past ten thousand years and assessing its climatic implications: a Canadian invitation for an international project during IPY 2007-08  (Reconstructing the surface circulation of the Arctic Ocean Basin during the past ten thousand years and assessing its climatic implications: a Canadian invitation for an international project during IPY 2007-08)

Outline
Canada, Europe and Russia constitute the primary jurisdictions encircling the Arctic Ocean Basin. Cooperative investigation of this large environmental system is central to our shared objective of understanding global climate change. However, many Arctic climate records only go back to ca. 1950, and are therefore too brief to properly assess the range of natural variability in this region. The need to establish robust records spanning centuries to millennia is therefore essential if we are to properly assess the potential impacts of human society on the global system. Canadian researchers operating throughout the Arctic Archipelago have demonstrated substantial leadership concerning the investigation of high latitude environmental change and this proposal emphasizes the opportunity for Canada to organize a compelling international program seeded by its own scientist accomplishments. In the late 1890s, the existence of a Transpolar Drift (TPD) - a major surface current crossing the Arctic Ocean from Russia to the North Atlantic - was hypothesized and subsequently demonstrated by Nansen's famous voyage of the Fram. Almost a century later, Canadian scientists elaborated on this discovery, demonstrating for the first time that there have been major oscillations in the trajectory of TPD (Dyke, England, Reimnitz and Jetté, 1997). We now know that the transport of driftwood across the Arctic Ocean Basin, like the drift of Nansen’s Fram, requires three years, and unless the wood is embedded in drifting sea ice, it becomes water-logged and sinks en route. Consequently, the arrival of driftwood in Arctic Canada or Europe signals its conveyance by sea ice that in turn records the trajectory of the TPD at that time. It is also recognized that the driftwood record (its abundance or absence) in Arctic Canada is often negatively correlated with its abundance/absence in the European Arctic during the same intervals. Hence, the wood is often being selectively partitioned between these two parts of the Arctic Ocean Basin. Furthermore, a coupled atmospheric-ocean model has shown that these two trajectories are driven by different phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). A positive phase produces surface winds and sea ice transport that favours a westward displacement of the TPD and driftwood delivery into the Canada Arctic Archipelago. Conversely, a negative NAO carries more wood to Europe, allowing a strengthened TPD to shift eastward, exiting via Fram Strait (Tremblay et al. 1998). About 10,000 years ago virtually all of the Canadian and European arctic were covered with expansive ice sheets. Unloading of the Earth’s crust by these ice sheets has left widespread raised marine shorelines. Throughout the Canadian, European and Russian Arctic, these shorelines now provide a valuable archive of past environmental information including driftwood, marine mollusks, and whale bones. This record provides an enormous opportunity to reconstruct the history of the Arctic Ocean Basin. The scope of this work will require strong international cooperation between the nation states bordering the Arctic Ocean. This proposal would diversify and integrate the environmental database currently available from coastlines surrounding the Arctic Ocean, addressing issues of immediate human interest, especially for indigenous societies that depend on an ecosystem where sea ice plays a fundamental role in their cultural integrity. Lately, increasing evidence shows that the NAO and AO are recorded in other proxy records such as the Greenland ice cores. Changes in these atmospheric patterns are relevant to weather patterns affecting North America and Europe, Including regions whose populations may incorrectly assume to be far beyond the influence (importance) of the Arctic (i.e., the Mediterranean, or the Canadian Prairies). Consequently, reconstructing past changes in the TPD is more than an academic exercise. Rather it provides an important methodology to document the frequency and duration of hemispheric changes in recognized features of our atmospheric circulation that impact human society. It is also relevant to the trajectories of contaminants and to the environmental conditions that control renewable resources such as fish stocks (see application by Terry Dick). Currently, these records pertaining to past sea ice extent and drift patterns have been poorly investigated and large areas of coastline remain unvisited. An improved understanding of past environmental change around the Arctic Ocean Basin is long overdue and promises fundamental insights concerning the global energy balance. By 2090, some climate models predict a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean, a possibility that is reinforced by satellite observations demonstrating it’s alarming reduction since ~1970 (Vinnikov et al. 1999, ACIA 2004). An ice-free Arctic Ocean would have enormous implications for northern ecosystems, indigenous peoples, commercial shipping, resource development, and climatic change throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Canada should take a leadership role on this theme because its scientists have made many of the discoveries upon which this proposal is based.

What significant advance(s) in relation to the IPY themes and targets can be anticipated from this project?
The proposed study of the Arctic Ocean basin is relevant to all six of the IPY themes. It is relevant to the present status of the polar regions as it will provide direct insights into the variability of past sea ice extent and trajectories and help to determine to what degree those changes are similar to modern conditions that are experiencing strong anthropogenic forcing. The changes in sea ice extent and surface circulation implicitly monitor both change and global linkages between polar regions and the rest of the globe as they reflect hemispheric atmospheric circulation patterns that have been modelled with this geological data. The proposed research includes new frontiers as it expands on the pioneering work of Nansen whose Transpolar Drift has received little subsequent investigation despite its enormous importance to the climate of the North Atlantic, including deep water formation. The raised shorelines to be surveyed provide a vantage point and dir! ect input to geophysical modelling of the earth’s crust. The understanding of the sea ice system and its related ecosystem is implicitly relevant to northern communities and their cultural integrity (human dimension).

What international collaboration is involved in this project?
I attended a Canada-EU symposium in Brussels (March 2004) organized by the Canadian Polar Commission attended by approximately fifty scientists and policy makers concerning possible scientific collaboration during IPY. There are many potential international collaborators both from this group as well as colleagues principally from Norway, Denmark (Greenland), and Russia where emergent vs. submergent coastlines are widespread within their Arctic territories. There are also several key Canadian colleagues, principally at the Geological Survey of Canada. I have not had time to compile and correspond with members of this group but have the contacts to do so once a program such as this gained approval.

FIELD ACTIVITY DETAILS

Geographical location(s) for the proposed field activities:
I would like to conduct fieldwork in Arctic Canada that extends across northernmost Ellesmere Island (where wood is abundant), westward to Axel Heiberg Island and many of the outlying islands of the westernmost arctic archipelago (Prince Patrick, Melville, Borden islands etc). I would also like to see complementary fieldwork in North Greenland, Svalbard and the Russian archipelago (Novaya Zemlya, the New Siberian Islands etc.). Collections have been made already in many of these areas but these records remain poorly archived and radiocarbon dated. Also large areas will need renewed efforts to bolster the coverage of existing collections.

Approximate timeframe(s) for proposed field activities:
Arctic: 06/07 – 08/06      06/07- 08/07      06/08- 08/08
Antarctic: n/a

Significant facilities will be required for this project:
This work will require well-coordinated logistics that could likely be combined for the Canadian Arctic and Greenland work possibly through PCSP (depending on funding). Polar Shelf is fully experienced in this region. Field parties in the European and Russian archipelagos might also be able to coordinate their logistical resources. Most of the basic fieldwork will have to be done on foot (site collections and surveys) after camps are staged by fixed-wing aircraft or helicopter. I have given this considerable thought for northern Ellesmere Island, for example, and am eager to involve Canada’s Arctic Rangers who have the expertise to provide skidoos and sledges that would be ideally suited to cross the permanent sea ice of these fiords and adjacent sea-ice ice shelves. The involvement of the Arctic Rangers (with whom I spoke while in Inuvik, Sept. 2004) would fittingly incorporate indigenous people from Arctic communities in this work. The Inuk component coul! d also include students interested in environmental research thereby ensuring that IPY was meaningful to their capacity building in the earth and environmental sciences.

Will the project leave a legacy of infrastructure?
This is difficult to predict but it may very well lead to the beginning of several indigenous careers that would constitute a very important human legacy.

How is it envisaged that the required logistic support will be secured?

In Canada, a substantially increased budget will have to be allocated to Polar Continental Shelf Project, NRCan. Their support is indispensable to any land or sea-ice based Arctic research. Because the proposed project falls well outside the operational territory of PCSP, additional providers will be required for the European and Russian Arctic islands. I also think that the Canadian Military should be involved as the work in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland would logically require the involvement of Alert and possibly aircraft based out of there. Could military Twin Otters or helicopters also contribute? I would also like to include the ground-based support by the Arctic Rangers across the Canadian Arctic islands where their knowledge of sea ice travel would be indispensable. I would also be willing to contribute resources from my NSERC Northern Chair, especially in the support of graduate training through related theses projects.

Has the project been "endorsed" at a national or international level?
Although this project has not been endorsed at either a national or international level, it has been part of my long-term objectives under my current award of an NSERC Northern Chair (original proposal 2001). Furthermore, this proposal was well received when I presented it at the Canada-EU Arctic Symposium (Brussels, 2004). I am unaware of any similar IPY proposal originating in Canada or elsewhere. However this would complement the German proposal to place buoys in the Arctic Ocean during IPY (to determine Arctic Ocean surface circulations). This pre-proposal has been reviewed and is being submitted by the Canadian Steering Committee (CSC). Ongoing discussions will integrate this pre-proposal into a larger network of related national and international initiatives. The CSC has initially sorted this pre-proposal into: THEME: Education, Outreach & Communication SUB-THEME: Arctic Ocean Fluxes & Flows

PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND STRUCTURE

Is the project a short-term expansion (over the IPY 2007-2008 timeframe) of an existing plan, programme or initiative or is it a new autonomous proposal?
yes

My current award of an NSERC Northern Chair runs from 2002 to 2007 and before IPY begins I will submit my application for renewal for a further 5 yrs. This would ensure that my participation in the proposed research, and that of my graduate students, would have continuity well beyond IPY. The study of past driftwood entry into Arctic Canada and the circulation of the Arctic Ocean basin (and its related climate forcing) are central to my current project entitled ”Past environmental change in Arctic Canada: ice age to present”.

How will the project be organised and managed?
My current award of an NSERC Northern Chair runs from 2002 to 2007 and before IPY begins I will submit my application for renewal for a further 5 yrs. This would ensure that my participation in the proposed research, and that of my graduate students, would have continuity well beyond IPY. The study of past driftwood entry into Arctic Canada and the circulation of the Arctic Ocean basin (and its related climate forcing) are central to my current project entitled ”Past environmental change in Arctic Canada: ice age to present”.

What are the initial plans of the project for addressing the education, outreach and communication issues outlined in the Framework document?
The NSERC Northern Chair currently has formal partnerships (for educational outreach) with the Natural Resources Technology Program, Aurora College, Inuvik, and with the Environmental Technology Program, Nunavut Arctic College, Iqaluit. Students from both programs will be joining my Arctic field projects during the summer of 2005. This educational outreach could be readily expanded to incorporate such students for the Arctic Ocean project outlined here.

What are the initial plans of the project to address data management issues (as outlined in the Framework document?
Data management would simply involve the hiring of an individual to collate it under a suitable and internationally agreed-upon database. The Canadian radiocarbon database housing analyzed driftwood, whalebone and marine shells is available in CARDBOX (Geological Survey of Canada, Ottawa) and for Arctic samples a parallel data base using the same software is available at the University of Alberta.

How is it proposed to fund the project?
It is very difficult to estimate costs when the project is at such an embryonic stage (3.2 above). I currently have secured funding of $200 k/yr from NSERC (some of which could be placed towards this project). I also currently receive over $100 k/yr for logistical support from PCSP, however; these resources would have to be expanded for the proposed project in order to accommodate its increased scope. Hopefully, if we are to continue with this statement of intent, additional resources will be made available to pursue IPY initiatives. Without such resources this proposal is not practicable.

Is there additional information you wish to provide?
This project is timely and shows enormous potential given that the Canadian Arctic Archipelago is ideally positioned to address oscillations of the Arctic Ocean circulation. I would also stress that it is particularly appropriate that Canadians initiate and lead this project, given that the reconstructions of an oscillating Arctic Ocean circulation regime originated here. We look forward to finding out what resources will be made available through IPY so that we can develop contacts in Canada, Europe, and Russia.

PROPOSER DETAILS

Prof  John England
University of Alberta
Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences,
Edmonton AB
T6G 2E3
Canada

Tel: 780-492-5673
Mobile: no
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Other project members and their affiliation