During the first three years of a cooperative agreement with NSF, IARC developed its Climate of the Arctic: Modeling and Processes (CAMP) project. The new funds will allow IARC to begin its second stage of development, focusing on efforts to integrate and synthesize a variety of arctic research related to climate change. The aim is to incorporate arctic research in a major, international computer modeling effort called the Global Climate Model (GCM), which will predict long-term climate change, from both natural and man-made causes. UAF's supercomputer and the world's biggest supercomputer, the Earth Simulator in Yokohama, Japan, will be used for the computations and analyses.
In this process, IARC scientists also conduct observational projects, including the monitoring of the Arctic Ocean using Russian icebreakers and research vessels, deploying ocean buoys, monitoring permafrost temperatures in Barrow, Fairbanks, Glennallen, and along the trans-Alaska oil pipeline access road, measuring carbon dioxide and methane levels in Barrow and Fairbanks, and maintaining a continuous meteorological observation station near the summit of Mount McKinley.
IARC scientists work in close cooperation with researchers from more than 30 institutes throughout the world, and a Japanese university consortium will soon join in IARC research activities with their Japanese Arctic Measurements Project (JAMP). IARC is also coordinating a major international project called the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) with scientists in the arctic to prepare a detailed analysis of environmental and social impacts caused by climate change.
CONTACT: Syun-Ichi Akasofu, IARC director at (907) 474-6012 or e-mail sakasofu@iarc.uaf.edu, or visit the Earth Simulator website at http://www.es.jamstec.go.jp/esc/eng/, or UAF's Arctic Region Supercomputing Center website at http://www.arsc.edu/ for more information.