HOME PAGE SUBSCRIPTIONS, Print Editions, Newsletter PRODUCTS READ THE PETROLEUM NEWS ARCHIVE! ADVERTISING INFORMATION EVENTS PETROLEUM NEWS BAKKEN MINING NEWS

Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
April 2008

Vol. 13, No. 15 Week of April 13, 2008

NOAA aircraft probing Arctic pollution

Kay Cashman

Petroleum News

Scientists from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration are flying through “springtime” Arctic pollution north of Alaska to find out why the region is warming — specifically why summertime sea ice is melting faster than predicted.

In late March some 35 NOAA researchers joined their government and university colleagues in Fairbanks, Alaska, to conduct the study, which will end on April 23. Called ARCPAC — Aerosol, Radiation and Cloud Processes Affecting Arctic Climate Change — the study is a NOAA contribution to International Polar Year 2008, the federal agency said in an April 7 press release.

“The Arctic is changing before our eyes,” said A.R. Ravishankara, director of the chemistry division at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. “Capturing in detail the processes behind this large and surprisingly rapid transformation is a unique opportunity for understanding climate changes occurring elsewhere.”

According to NOAA, observations from instruments on the ground, balloons and satellites show the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe.

The agency said “summer sea-ice extent has decreased by nearly 40 percent compared to the 1979-2000 average, and the ice is thinning.”

Industry, transportation and biomass burning in North America, Europe, and Asia, NOAA said, are “emitting trace gases and tiny airborne particles that are polluting the polar region, forming an ‘Arctic Haze’ every winter and spring.” The agency’s scientists suspect these pollutants are speeding up the polar melt.

Coordinating with NASA, DOE

NOAA’s study is being coordinated with the agency’s long-term climate monitoring station at Barrow, Alaska, and with ongoing projects conducted by NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy.

“This is our first airborne deployment of a powerful new suite of instruments in the Arctic,” said ARCPAC lead scientist Dan Murphy, also of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory. “When we analyze all the data, we’ll be able to piece together the equivalent of a high-def movie of the atmosphere as springtime sunlight warms the region and sparks a chain of chemical reactions.”

Scientists aboard the NOAA WP-3-D research aircraft will use nearly 30 airborne sensors to answer questions about airborne particles, altered clouds, low-altitude ozone and soot deposited on snow.

NOAA said all the particles are produced or affected by human activities and “may be playing key roles” in the rapid warming of the Arctic.

Greenland and Barents seas

In a related study the NOAA-led International Chemistry Experiment in the Arctic Lower Troposphere, ICEALOT, will gather shipboard measurements of atmospheric fine particles and trace gases in the air above the Greenland and Barents seas, ice free areas that are closer to sources than the ARCPAC study area.

ICELOT’s cruise began in March from Woodshole, Md., and will terminate April 24 in Iceland. A port stop is planned for April 12 and 13 in Tromso, Norway.

NOAA said its scientists are eager to compare the pollution north of Alaska with the more recent emissions near Europe.

NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, describes itself as “dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information.”

Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems, NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 70 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network.






Petroleum News - Phone: 1-907 522-9469 - Fax: 1-907 522-9583
[email protected] --- http://www.petroleumnews.com ---
S U B S C R I B E

Copyright Petroleum Newspapers of Alaska, LLC (Petroleum News)(PNA)©2013 All rights reserved. The content of this article and web site may not be copied, replaced, distributed, published, displayed or transferred in any form or by any means except with the prior written permission of Petroleum Newspapers of Alaska, LLC (Petroleum News)(PNA). Copyright infringement is a violation of federal law subject to criminal and civil penalties.