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Brief Project Description of ARCSS OAII

    Because of the focus on understanding the Arctic in the context of climate, other global changes, and human activities and the need for ongoing collaboration and coordination, the scientific community and the National Science Foundation (NSF) agreed that it establish an Arctic System Science Program (ARCSS) and a community committee to coordinate the activities of the components and to facilitate their integration.  As a contribution to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the ARCSS Program Office was established at the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS), and the first ARCSS Committee was appointed in 1991. One of ARCUS' major activities is planning and coordinating the work of the ARCSS Committee, which serves as the focal point for integration and coordination among the many ARCSS components and projects.

    ARCSS has three linked ongoing components administered within the Earth System History initiative of the United States Global Change Research Program:

• Ocean/Atmosphere/Ice Interactions (OAII);
• Land/Atmosphere/Ice Interactions (LAII); and
• Paleoenvironmental Studies implemented through two projects: Paleoclimates from Arctic Lakes and Estuaries [PALE], and Greenland Ice Sheet Project Two (GISP2).

OAII, implemented in 1991, was the second component (after GISP 2) of ARCSS to get underway. The marine environment of the Arctic is an interactive system comprising the water, ice, air, biota, dissolved chemicals and sediments of the Arctic Ocean and its adjacent seas. Through the operation of feedback loops that are only partially understood, this system strongly affects the steady and time-varying climatic state of the earth, and responds sensitively to environmental perturbations that originate outside the Arctic.

OAII seeks to enhance understanding of this system and its role in climate and global change. Six science priorities have been identified during the planning process for ARCSS/OAII:

• Surace energy budget, atmospheric radiation and clouds
• Circulation of the Arctic Ocean
• Hydrologic cycle of the Arctic Basin
• Productivity and biogeochemical cycling
• Coupled air-sea-ice modeling
• Paleoceanography of the Arctic.
• Atmospheric Sciences

    These priorities have been developed through a series of community-wide meetings and workshops, beginning with the ARCSS/OAII Lake Arrowhead workshop in March, 1990. ARCSS/OAII planning is developed by the Science Steering Committee,which produced the ARCSS/OAII Initial Science Plan in August, 1992. The SSC's activities, and ARCSS/OAII planning, coordination, and implementation are supported in part by the ARCSS/OAII Science Management Office (SMO), currently located at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Horn Point Laboratory, Cambridge, MD. ARCSS/OAII Documents currently available from the SMO include:

• ARCSS/OAII Newsletters #1 and #2
• ARCSS/OAII Lake Arrowhead Workshop (1990)
• ARCSS/OAII Initial Science Plan (1992)
• ARCSS/OAII Modeling Workshop Report (1992)
• SHEBA: Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean - A Prospectus (1993)
• ARCSS/OAII  Brochure (1997)
• ARCSS/OAII All Hands Meeting and Planning Workshop, Report #6 (1997)
• ARCSS/OAII Western Arctic Shelf-Basin Interactions Science Plan, Report #7 (1998)
• Study of the Arctic Change Workshop, Report #8 (1998)

    Coordinated research efforts to be conducted as part of ARCSS/OAII are developed through community-wide planning efforts organized and facilitated by the SSC. Individual and group research projects are proposed in response to ARCSS/OAII Program Announcements published by NSF, in response to recommendations forwarded by the SSC to NSF-ARCSS Program Management. Individual research proposals are also entertained by NSF-ARCSS. All projects are peer-reviewed by mail and/or panel, and awards are made on a competitive basis.

    Coordinated projects conducted as part of ARCSS/OAII include:

• Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA). Dr. Richard Moritz is the Project Office Director.
• Western Arctic Shelf Basin Interactions (SBI). Dr. Jackie Grebmeier is the Director.
• The Study of Arctic Environmental Change (SEARCH). Jamie Morison will be the Chair of the SEARCH Science Plan Committee.

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