Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) is a collaborative program of Arctic researchers, funding agencies, and others that facilitates the synthesis of Arctic science and communicates the current understanding to help society respond to a rapidly changing Arctic.
SEARCH activities are supported by a collaborative grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Polar Programs, Arctic Sciences Section to the International Arctic Research Center, and the Arctic Research Consortium of the US. These resources have been further supplemented by recent contributions from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Center for the Blue Economy (Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey) and the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. Other agencies have provided program support in the past and continue their intellectual engagement.
SEARCH focuses on how shrinking land ice, diminishing sea ice, and degrading permafrost impact Arctic and global systems. [1]
The Arctic is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada, Denmark (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States (Alaska). Land within the Arctic region has seasonally varying snow and ice cover, with predominantly treeless permafrost containing tundra. Arctic seas contain seasonal sea ice in many places.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is an American scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charts the seas, conducts deep sea exploration, and manages fishing and protection of marine mammals and endangered species in the U.S. exclusive economic zone.
The International Polar Years (IPY) are collaborative, international efforts with intensive research focus on the polar regions. Karl Weyprecht, an Austro-Hungarian naval officer, motivated the endeavor in 1875, but died before it first occurred in 1882–1883. Fifty years later (1932–1933) a second IPY took place. The International Geophysical Year was inspired by the IPY and was organized 75 years after the first IPY (1957–58). The fourth, and most recent, IPY covered two full annual cycles from March 2007 to March 2009.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) is a United States information and referral center in support of polar and cryospheric research. NSIDC archives and distributes digital and analog snow and ice data and also maintains information about snow cover, avalanches, glaciers, ice sheets, freshwater ice, sea ice, ground ice, permafrost, atmospheric ice, paleoglaciology, and ice cores.
The Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center (BPCRC) is a polar, alpine, and climate research center at Ohio State University founded in 1960.
The United States Antarctic Program is an organization of the United States government which has presence in the Antarctica continent. Founded in 1959, the USAP manages all U.S. scientific research and related logistics in Antarctica as well as aboard ships in the Southern Ocean.
The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) was an international marine research program. The program used heavy drilling equipment mounted aboard ships to monitor and sample sub-seafloor environments. With this research, the IODP documented environmental change, Earth processes and effects, the biosphere, solid earth cycles, and geodynamics.
Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) is a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). OAR is also referred to as NOAA Research.
The Arctic Research Office (ARO) a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) run under the auspices of the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR).
The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) is a study describing the ongoing climate change in the Arctic and its consequences: rising temperatures, loss of sea ice, unprecedented melting of the Greenland ice sheet, and many impacts on ecosystems, animals, and people. The ACIA is the first comprehensively researched, fully referenced, and independently reviewed evaluation of Arctic climate change and its impacts for the region and for the world. The project was guided by the intergovernmental Arctic Council and the non-governmental International Arctic Science Committee. Three hundred scientists participated in the study over a span of three years.
The Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) is a United States Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center research facility headquartered in Hanover, New Hampshire, that provides scientific and engineering support to the U.S. government and its military with a core emphasis on cold environments. CRREL also provides technical support to non-government customers.
The Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) was the program responsible for coordinating and integrating research on global warming by U.S. government agencies from February 2002 to June 2009. Toward the end of that period, CCSP issued 21 separate climate assessment reports that addressed climate observations, changes in the atmosphere, expected climate change, impacts and adaptation, and risk management issues. Shortly after President Obama took office, the program's name was changed to U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) which was also the program's name before 2002. Nevertheless, the Obama Administration generally embraced the CCSP products as sound science providing a basis for climate policy. Because those reports were mostly issued after the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and in some cases focused specifically on the United States, they were generally viewed within the United States as having an importance and scientific credibility comparable to the IPCC assessments for the first few years of the Obama Administration.
The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) is a research center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in Santa Barbara, California. Better known by its acronym, NCEAS opened in May 1995. Funding for NCEAS is diverse and includes supporters such as the U.S. National Science Foundation, the State of California, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Circumarctic Environmental Observatories Network (CEON) is a network of terrestrial and freshwater observation platforms, science experts and network partners promoting the collection and dissemination of environmental data from the Arctic. CEON observation platforms include land and freshwater observatories, research infrastructures, former research sites where retrospective analyses are being or can be undertaken, data and image archive centers and community monitoring programs.
Arctic cooperation and politics are partially coordinated via the Arctic Council, composed of the eight Arctic nations: the United States, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, and Denmark with Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The dominant governmental power in Arctic policy resides within the executive offices, legislative bodies, and implementing agencies of the eight Arctic nations, and to a lesser extent other nations, such as United Kingdom, Germany, European Union and China. NGOs and academia play a large part in Arctic policy. Also important are intergovernmental bodies such as the United Nations and NATO.
The Arctic policy of the United States is the foreign policy of the United States in regard to the Arctic region. In addition, the United States' domestic policy toward Alaska is part of its Arctic policy.
William Wyvill Fitzhugh IV is an American archaeologist and anthropologist who directs the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies Center and is a Senior Scientist at the National Museum of Natural History. He has conducted archaeological research throughout the circumpolar region investigating cultural responses to climate and environmental change and European contact. He has published numerous books and more than 150 journal articles, and has produced large international exhibitions and popular films. Of particular note are the many exhibition catalogues he has had edited, which make syntheses of scholarly research on these subjects available to visitors to public exhibitions.
The Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic, or ELOKA, is an Arctic research data management program that combines local traditional knowledge (LTK) and local observations data from Indigenous Arctic residents utilizing effective and appropriate western methods to properly share Arctic Indigenous Knowledge. The LTK data the program stewards consists of observations of sea ice, weather, wildlife and comes in many forms such as written interview transcripts, audio or video tapes and files, photographs, artwork, illustrations and maps. Housed at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder Cooperative Institute for Research and Environmental Sciences (CIRES), ELOKA is a National Science Foundation (NSF) Arctic Observing Network (AON) research program that came out of the 2007-2008 International Polar Year (IPY).
Louise Tolle Huffman is an American teacher with over 30 years of teaching experience with many years focused on polar science and climate studies, and has written educational outreach books and articles on Antarctica. She is the Director of Education and Outreach for the US Ice Drilling Program Office (IDPO), responsible for outreach efforts highlighting IDPO scientists and their research results.