The Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM) Program's North Slope of Alaska climate research site: ARM's window on the arctic

The North Slope of Alaska and the adjacent Arctic Ocean has been chosen as the primary high-latitude ARM site. This is a region of the globe where, on average the planet loses more energy to space than it receives from the sun. Global climate models appear to be particularly sensitive to climate perturbations at high Northern latitudes. It is therefore important to pay careful attention to these heat sink regions and incorporate high-latitude climate processes correctly. Once we get high latitude processes 'right,' we can use the polar regions as a diagnostic for global climate change. The Arctic is characterized by extreme seasonal variation in insolation, surface properties, and exchange of water vapor between the surface and the atmosphere. This extreme variation leads to important climate feedback mechanisms involving the interaction between surface temperature and water vapor, cloud cover, and surface albedo. The challenge for the North Slope of Alaska ARM site is to capture these high-latitude feedback processes for inclusion in global climate models.