AGU 2008 Fall Meeting

Media advisory: Tuesday, 16 December
0900h

Continuing climate changes in the Arctic received renewed scientific attention during the International Polar Year (IPY) — a scientific research campaign focused on the Arctic and Antarctic, which is slated to end in early 2009. This briefing presents early results from a range of Arctic studies conducted during IPY based on climate models and new observations taken from sea, land, and space. Findings include the discovery of new seeps of the greenhouse gas methane along the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, large increases in tundra greenness along North America's Arctic coasts, a lengthening snowmelt season and a second year of ice mass loss in Greenland, and evidence that the predicted amplification of Arctic warming due to decreasing sea ice has already begun.

Panelists:

Igor Semiletov
Research Associate Professor, International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA;

Julienne Stroeve
Research Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA;

Marco Tedesco
Director, Cryospheric Processes and Remote Sensing Laboratory, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, City College of New York, New York, New York, USA;

D. A. (Skip) Walker
Greening of the Arctic Principal Investigator, Alaska Geobotany Center, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA.

Sessions: C41B, U23F