March
30, 2007 The team conducts
research at the
North Slope of Alaska east of Barrow along the coast of the Sponsored by DOE's
Office of
Science and managed by its Office of Biological and Environmental
Research, the
Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility
operates two
research sites at the The North Slope of
Alaska will
continue to serve as a center for atmospheric and ecological research
activity
during the International Polar Year 2007-2008, focusing on Arctic
scientific
activities, while scientists from the world over will focus research on
both
the Climate researchers
are focusing
increased attention on high latitudes, as found at the site, as they
work to
better understand the interactions of the atmosphere-land-ocean system.
The Sandia is a National
Nuclear
Security Administration (NNSA) laboratory. “The arid
cold during winter at
the “Because
the North Slope site is
fairly cold year-round, we often observe clouds that are composed of
ice or ice
and water in mixed phases,” says Ivey, The value of these
different
regional factors is that the researchers have the chance to study how
longwave
energy gets trapped to varying degrees inside the atmosphere by
different
conditions from chemical constituents that include water vapor, carbon
dioxide,
methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and liquid water droplets
that
absorb the energy emitted by the surface of Earth. This year is also
the 50th
anniversary of the International Geophysical Year (IGY), a similar
international scientific effort that initiated a comprehensive series
of global
geophysical activities to span the period July 1957–December
1958. The seeds of the
present concern
about global climate change were planted during the IGY. Prior to IGY,
it was
not known that the burning of fossil fuels was progressively changing
the
composition of the global atmosphere.
Recommend this Article to a Friend Back to: News |
Subscribe to the Earth Observatory About the Earth Observatory Contact Us Privacy Policy and Important Notices Responsible NASA Official: Lorraine A. Remer Webmaster: Goran Halusa We're a part of the Science Mission Directorate |