Arctic climate experts to meet in Fairbanks
Arctic climate experts to meet in Fairbanks
Submitted by Marmian Grimes
Phone: (907) 474-7902
02/07/07
Climate researchers from four countries will gather in Fairbanks Feb. 19-20, 2007 for the Seventh International Conference on Global Change: Connection to the Arctic, known as GCCA-7. The two-day conference will take place at the Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge.
The conference is jointly organized by the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the members of the University Consortium for GCCA in Japan. It will bring together some of the top climate change scientists in the world for two days of detailed presentations and discussions on global change and the Arctic. Sessions will focus on synthesizing diverse research activities to arrive at a holistic understanding of climate change, explaining the role of the Arctic in global climate change and initiating collaborative research projects to be conducted during the International Polar Year, a two-year initiative that will focus research efforts and public attention on the polar regions.
"It is our hope (that) through such cooperation and collaboration, we can achieve the level of understanding needed to be confident in our predictions of future environmental changes in arctic regions,"? said Larry Hinzman, IARC director, in the conference introduction. "Research results presented here "| will help us advance toward that goal."?
The conference comes on the heels of the Feb. 2 release of the first volume of "Climate Change 2007,"? the fourth assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report highlights the influence humans are having on global change and reinforced the scientific community’s findings that the global climate system is warming. The effects of that warming are amplified in the Arctic. Evidence of that includes thawing permafrost and the shrinking arctic sea ice and Greenland ice sheet.
"Changes in the Arctic are especially important because they can affect the rest of the world,"? said John Walsh, head of the UAF Center for Global Change and Arctic System Research. "A rise in sea level will impact all coastal areas."?
Walsh is a contributor to the second volume of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability,"? slated for release in April. He is scheduled to lead a special plenary session at 9 a.m. on the second day of the conference focusing on an arctic system model. The model would simulate all of the important climatic processes in the Arctic. It would allow scientists to simulate how changes in one part of the system, such as sea ice, might affect others, such as terrestrial vegetation.
Craig Dorman, UA statewide IPY coordinator, and Hiroshi Kanda of the National Institute of Polar Research in Japan will lead a special plenary session on the International Polar Year at 10 a.m. on the first day of the conference. The session will highlight several IPY-related projects, including work by several of UAF’s International Polar Year postdoctoral fellows. The University of Alaska funded these research positions in an effort to encourage a new generation of scientists to continue to better understand the changing Arctic.
Afternoons each day will include an assortment of simultaneous sessions focusing on specific disciplines within the study of the arctic regions.
Monday sessions include: - Atmospheric circulation, dynamics and chemistry - Ocean circulation and sea ice - Middle atmosphere and space/weather geodynamics - Hydrology and permafrost
Tuesday sessions include: - Ice sheets, glaciers and paleoclimate - Arctic ecosystem and fire impacts - Remote sensing of environmental change
CONTACT: Marmian Grimes, UAF public information officer, at (907) 474-7902 or via e-mail at marmian.grimes@uaf.edu.åÊ
Editors: Contact Marmian Grimes for media conference registration. UAF public information officers will also be available at the conference. Visit the conference Web site at http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/workshops/GCCA-7/ for more information, including links to the conference hotel.
ON THE WEB:
http://www.ipcc.ch/
http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/
http://www.uaf.edu/news/a_news/20060831115103.html