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EOS, TRANSACTIONS AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION, VOL. 89, NO. 27, doi:10.1029/2008EO270007, 2008

Generating and Synthesizing Paleoclimate Data to Assess Arctic Climate Change

Nalan Koc

Norwegian Polar Institute, Polar Environmental Centre, Tromsø, Norway


Pierre Francus

University of Massachusetts-Amherst, USA


Caspar Ammann

National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colo., USA


David M. Anderson

NOAA National Climatic Data Center, Boulder, Colo., USA


Raymond Bradley

Climate System Research Center, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, USA


Darrell Kaufman

Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, USA


Atte Korhola

University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland


Gifford Miller

University of Colorado, Boulder, USA


Abstract

PAGES Working Group Meeting: Arctic Climate During the Last 2 Millennia; Boulder, Colorado, 8 March 2008; Climate change in the Arctic is amplified by albedo feedbacks involving snow and ice. Between the nineteenth and 21st centuries, warming in the Arctic was very likely double that for the globe (see Impacts of a Warming Arctic, Cambridge University Press, 2004). This trend appears to have further accelerated during the past decade as evidenced by both the dramatic decrease of summer sea ice cover and increased melt rates of glaciers. The limited instrumental record covering only the past ∼50 years severely limits our understanding of multidecadal and centennial spatial and temporal variability. It is therefore unclear if the increased rate of change is the result of superposition of the general warming trend on natural climate variability or if the Arctic system might have reached a tipping point. As the Arctic is home to the large ice mass of Greenland, it is therefore crucial for climate change research to improve our understanding of this sensitive region.

Published 1 July 2008.

Index Terms: 3344 Atmospheric Processes: Paleoclimatology (0473, 4900); 4901 Paleoceanography: Abrupt/rapid climate change (1605); 4928 Paleoceanography: Global climate models (1626, 3337).

Print Version (101005 bytes)

Citation: Koc, N., P. Francus, C. Ammann, D. M. Anderson, R. Bradley, D. Kaufman, A. Korhola, and G. Miller (2008), Generating and Synthesizing Paleoclimate Data to Assess Arctic Climate Change, Eos Trans. AGU, 89(27), doi:10.1029/2008EO270007.