Modeled Impacts of Changing Sea Ice on the Northern Alaska Coastal Terrestrial Ecosystem
Abstract
As part of the Study of the Northern Alaska Coastal System (SNACS) project, the complex feedback relationship between Arctic sea ice cover, surface air temperature, and terrestrial change is examined using the Polar MM5 regional atmospheric model. The model domain is centered over Alaska and comparisons are made between a 23 year run from 1979 to 2002 forced with observed sea ice cover and a 23 year run from 2040 to 2063 forced with future sea ice scenarios from IPCC global climate system model projections. Both model runs use the same atmospheric lateral forcing, from ERA-40, to isolate the changes resulting from the altered sea ice state. It is found that both surface air and terrestrial changes are significantly spatially dependent. Locations near open water have increased surface air temperatures due to increased amounts of latent and sensible heat transfer. Due to increased amounts of moisture from open water, some costal areas show increased snowfall and increased snowpack. However, due to warmer soil temperatures, these areas tend to show longer growing seasons due and advance of the spring snow melt. It is expected that these changes will have an impact on net carbon fluxes in this ecosystem.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2006
- Bibcode:
- 2006AGUFM.C33B1272H
- Keywords:
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- 0400 BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0700 CRYOSPHERE (4540);
- 1600 GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 3300 ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES