Variability and Climatic Significance of Snow in the Artic Basin

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The snow on top of the Arctic pack ice is an important factor of the summer climates in the northern high latitudes, with implications for the long-term mass balance and stability of the ice and potential impact on other parts of the world. Its state may also serve as an indicator of climatic change induced by increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. This effort will focus on production of a gridded ten-year data set of snow melt and surface albedo in the Arctic Basin from DMSP satellite imagery. The project is important because such a data base would be invaulable in scientific studies of the complex ice-albedo feedback effects and may eventually lead to better formulation of such processes in numerical models of the climate system.