IPY to Mark Expansion of Research Facilities on the North Slope of Alaska

The Barrow Global Climate Change Research Facility will open to researchers on the North Slope of Alaska during the 2007-08 anniversary of the first IPY. Between 1949 and 1980, arctic researchers were very active on the North Slope and in nearby waters largely because of the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory (NARL) at Barrow. NARL provided easy access, laboratories and logistical support. NARL was closed in 1981, but particularly during this past decade, Barrow-based arctic research projects have been back on the upswing. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory (CMDL) Barrow station was founded during the 1970s, and continues as part of NOAA's five station global network for monitoring atmospheric composition. The North Slope Borough's Department of Wildlife Management (DWM) has for the past 20 years conducted its own research. The DWM also served as logistical provider for growing numbers of arctic researchers without other logistical support. In the late 1990s, the Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program (ARM: DOE's principal climate change research effort) created a Cloud and Radiation Testbed on the North Slope with atmospheric instrumentation at Barrow and Atqasuk. It is now part of the ARM Climate Research Facility, a National User Facility. In response to growing researcher needs, the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC) was formed in the late 1990s as a non-profit logistical support and community coordinating organization, and received the endorsement of Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corporation (UIC), NSB and the local community college. BASC provides logistical support to National Science Foundation (NSF) researchers through a cooperative agreement, and to others on a fee for service basis. UIC also dedicated 11 square miles of its land as the Barrow Environmental Observatory (BEO), and charged BASC with management of the BEO. This land that has been used for research for more than 50 years, and now is available to the larger research community through BASC. It has been protected from development by the NSB Assembly as a Scientific Research District. Since 1981, the remains of the old NARL infrastructure sustained the scientific enterprise on the North Slope. But now, as a result of the rapid ongoing changes in the Arctic, these old inadequate facilities are about to be replaced. The new Barrow facility, although smaller than the old NARL, will serve the needs of modern researchers with first class laboratories, information technology and lodging. It is being designed by the arctic research community itself through a series of workshops held over this past year, and through ongoing feedback (http://scifac.arcticscience.org). Research on the North Slope capitalizes on the history of collaboration between the Native Inupiat Eskimo people and scientists going back to the first IPY. Local native people have served in many support capacities for scientists in the past, and currently serve as managers and technicians for projects like ARM. It is this history of collaboration with scientists that inspired the creation of BASC, of the BEO, and that made the new facility possible. This paper reviews the status of planning for the new Barrow facility. Feedback can be provided through the web site and through the authors, who serve BASC respectively as chairs of advisory committees, Executive Director and President.