Proposed Development of a Community Arctic System Model for Understanding Environmental Complexity

During the International Polar Year 2007-2009, a series of international workshops were held on the future development of regional Earth System Models of the Arctic. There was a strong consensus at each of these meetings that limited-area Arctic Climate Models must soon include biogeochemistry, ecosystems and human dimension modules in addition to improved cryospheric sophistication and atmospheric chemistry. But more importantly, discussions frequently focused on the utility of regional Arctic System Models (ASMs) and the questions that they can and cannot answer. During the next ten years, global models will resolve many processes that were once the preserve of high-resolution regional models. However global models are also becoming increasingly complex, and stand-alone regional models have been identified as agents to help understand regional complexity, identify causality where it exists within the arctic environment, and provide a development laboratory for new processes and methods destined for global models. ASMs are also an ideal platform for downscaling global climate projections so that human-environment interactions can be nested within earth system simulations, and can contribute substantially to the design of Arctic observing networks. As a result of these workshops, a report to the National Science Foundation recommends the creation of a regional U.S. Community Arctic System Model as a focal point for a systems-based approach to understanding the arctic environment. In addition, there are several nations with strong arctic interests moving toward their own Arctic System Models, and an initial plan has been drawn up to foster collaboration between international groups tackling similar problems in ASM development. This presentation will detail the motivation, strategy and scientific rational for a U.S. Arctic System Model as an agent for understanding physical-biogeochemical-ecological-human interconnectivity of high-northern latitudes.