NASA to Embark on First Expedition of Project ICESCAPE: Studying Climate Change in the Arctic

On June 18th, NASA will embark on its first oceanographic mission as part of the multi-year project, ICESCAPE (Impacts of Climate change on the Eco-Systems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment).  This maiden voyage on the Coast Guard icebreaker, Healy, will take place over a five week period with the bulk of the research being performed in the Beaufort and Chuchki Seas.  The project will conclude with a voyage in the fall of the 2011.  NASA believes that this project is in keeping with its overall mission of scientific discovery and is being undertaken by their Earth Science division.

The ICESCAPE project will be conducted by a multi-disciplinary team of forty-three researchers from such respected institutions as Stanford University and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The project seeks to answer questions relating to how the changes taking place in the Arctic are affecting the ecology and biochemistry of the ocean.

  According to project scientists, the Arctic region has undergone rapid change due to climate instability.  The sea ice is retreating 28 days earlier and advancing 17 days later than it was in the 1990s.  Therefore, there is ice cover for 45 fewer days than there was a mere  20 years ago.  The arctic ice is retreating  at a more rapid rate than climate modeling had predicted. The thickness of the ice is also decreasing as it is only 5 to 10 feet thick, it is especially susceptible to warming temperatures.  Why is this a problem?  Well, many species migration patterns are timed to coincide with the optimal production of phytoplankton in the arctic, the timing of which is now 1 month earlier than it was such a short time ago.  This rapid change in timing has not given nature time to adapt the migration patterns of the fish, whales and birds that rely on it.  Phytoplankton is the foundation of the marine food chain, the building block so to speak of the ocean eco-system.  Contrary to what most people would believe, the arctic is not frozen wasteland, but a diverse and important eco-system.

The Arctic ice is also is a reflector of sunlight.  As a result, the loss of ice cover in the summer will accelerate the warming of the earth, thereby accelerating the melting of the ice and it is expected that by 2035-2040 the Arctic will be ice-free in summer.  The Arctic ocean is very shallow compared to the rest of the world’s oceans and is therefore very susceptible to changes in temperature, alkalinity, etc…  With less ice cover, the ocean would be able to absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere, but where will it go?

ICESCAPE scientists will be taking ice core and other samples as well as using NASA’s satellites to “fill in the gaps” of what they can determine on-site. They will determine carbon cycle and eco-system baselines which will prove invaluable as comparisons for their 2011 voyage and research in the years to come. 

Follow the ICESCAPE team on their blog.

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Posted by admin on Jun 10 2010. Filed under Latest Ocean News, Ocean Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.