The first three days of the SEARCH meeting were organized into major themes of Changes and Impacts, Feedbacks, and Drivers/Causes and included a combination of invited keynote talks, parallel science sessions with contributed papers, moderated plenary/panel discussions, and poster sessions. The fourth day included a session on the international implementation of SEARCH. One poster session was not covered by the parallel sessions.

Calendar of Events

Parallel Session Agendas - Click one of the parallel sessions below to view its agenda.

Main Agenda

The agenda is now downloadable in PDF format. (PDF - 26 KB)

Agenda last updated: 26 November 2003
Sunday, 26 October 2003
06:30 pm - 09:30 pm Icebreaker Reception and Registration
(International Promenade)
Day 1 - Monday, 27 October 2003
Theme: Changes and Impacts (Plenary Sessions in Bay Auditorium)
07:30 am - 08:30 am Registration (Entry Lobby)
08:00 am Continental breakfast (Kiosks)
08:30 am Welcome and Introductions
James Overland
Session Chair
Chair, Open Science Meeting Organizing Committee
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
08:50 am Findings of the Recent Arctic Climate Impact Assessment
Robert Corell
Senior Fellow
Harvard University and American Meteorological Society
09:20 am Regional View: Perceptions and Concerns About Change
Caleb Pungowiyi
President, Robert Aqqaluk Newlin, Sr. Memorial Trust
09:50 am Inuit and Climate Change: Influencing the Global Agenda
Sheila Watt-Cloutier
Chair, Inuit Circumpolar Conference
10:20 am BREAK
10:50 am Introduction to Parallel Science Sessions
Craig Nicolson
University of Massachusetts
11:10 am Plenary Discussion
11:30 am LUNCH (Harbor Dining Room)
01:00 pm Parallel Science Sessions: Changes and Impacts
SEARCH has been motivated by observations in recent years of a complex of seemingly interrelated, decadal scale, pan-Arctic changes. These have been seen on land, in the sea, and in the atmosphere and appear connected to changes at lower latitudes. Each parallel session will begin with a set of contributed papers and then will open for discussion aimed towards updating our understanding of previously observed changes, exploring new changes, and evaluating their consequences.
  I. Changes on Land (Bay Auditorium)
Topics such as, but not limited to, snow cover; permafrost; glaciers; hydrology; species composition, distribution, and abundance; subsistence harvesting; carbon (CO2 and methane)
Co-chairs: Matthew Sturm, Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory
Bruce Forbes, University of Lapland
 
II. Changes in the Sea (Sound Room)
Topics such as, but not limited to, salinity, temperature, currents, nutrients, sea ice, marine ecosystems (including people, marine mammals and fisheries)
Co-chairs: George Hunt, University of California Irvine
Motoyoshi Ikeda, Hokkaido University
 
III. Changes in the Atmosphere (Cove Room)
Topics such as, but not limited to, atmospheric pressure and circulation; temperature; cloudiness; precipitation and evaporation
Co-chairs: Hans von Storch, GKSS Research Centre
Richard Moritz, University of Washington
 
IV. Coastal Processes (Marina Room)
Topics such as, but not limited to, fate and transport of materials, erosion, effects on human communities
Co-chairs: Volker Rachold, Alfred Wegener Institute
Steven Solomon, Natural Resources Canada
04:30 pm Poster Session/Reception with cash bar (International Promenade)
06:30 pm Buffet DINNER and Sea Level Rise Beach Party - LIVE MUSIC (Odyssey Maritime Discovery Center)
Day 2 - Tuesday, 28 October 2003
Theme: Feedbacks (Plenary Sessions in Bay Auditorium)
08:00 am Continental breakfast (Kiosks)
08:30 am SEARCH Vision and Core Hypotheses
James Morison
Session Chair
Chair, SEARCH Science Steering Committee
University of Washington
09:00 am The Nature, Measurement, and Modeling of Feedbacks
Judith Curry
Georgia Institute of Technology
09:30 am Arctic Climate Simulations by Coupled Models
Annette Rinke
Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research
09:50 am Terrestrial Feedbacks: Vegetation, Carbon, and Heat
F. Stuart Chapin
University of Alaska Fairbanks
10:10 am BREAK
10:40 am The Freshwater Cycle and its Role in the Pan-Arctic System
Charles Vörösmarty
University of New Hampshire
11:00 am Sea Ice: Two Perspectives
Was Sea Ice Quite Thin in the 1990's? Yes
D. Andrew Rothrock
University of Washington Inter-Annual Variability in Arctic Sea Ice Thickness from Space
Seymour Laxon
University College London
11:40 am Human-Environment Relations: Responding to the Challenges and Opportunities of Arctic Environmental Change
Mark Nuttall
University of Alberta
12:00 pm LUNCH (Harbor Dining Room)
01:30 pm Parallel Science Sessions: Feedbacks
An important working hypothesis of SEARCH is that the complex of pan-Arctic changes is driven by a change in the atmospheric circulation of the Northern Hemisphere. To put this in perspective, it is also hypothesized that feedbacks within the arctic system are important in the complex of change, and that some of these feedbacks, along with other linkages to lower latitudes, are important to changes on a global scale. Each parallel session will begin with a set of contributed papers and then will open for discussion of feedbacks and linkages such as, but not limited to, ice-albedo feedback, vegetation-carbon feedback, effect of the freshwater cycle on global thermohaline circulation, and the nonlinear combined effects of environmental change and human activity on the ecosystem.
 
I. Social Feedbacks (Marina Room)
Co-chairs: Stewart Cohen, University of British Columbia and Environment Canada
Matthew Berman, University of Alaska Anchorage
 
II. Biological Feedbacks (Sound Room)
Co-chairs: Sue Moore, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Joshua Schimel, University of California Santa Barbara
 
III. Physical Feedbacks (Bay Auditorium)
Co-chairs: Michael Steele, University of Washington
Stephen Vavrus, University of Wisconsin
 
IV. Drivers and Causes (This session relates to Day 3 plenary) (Cove Room)
Co-chairs: James Overland, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Mark Serreze, University of Colorado
04:30 pm BREAK
05:00 pm Panel Discussion: Connections and Key Scientific Issues (Bay Auditorium)
This plenary session will provide an opportunity to further develop and integrate the ideas and discussions from the first two days of Keynote presentations and the "Changes and Impacts" and "Feedbacks" parallel sessions. The panel discussion will begin with an overview by the moderator, followed by several questions posed to the panelists. Each panelist will have an opportunity to address the questions from the perspective of his or her expertise. The brief panel presentations will be followed by an open moderated discussion that includes comments and questions from all panelists and members of the audience.
Moderator: Ron Clarke, Marine Conservation Alliance

Panelists: Mark Dyurgerov,
University of Colorado
Jennifer Francis,
Rutgers University
Jack Kruse,
University of Massachusetts
Glen MacDonald,
University of California Los Angeles
Peter Schlosser,
Columbia University
Gaius Shaver,
Marine Biological Laboratory
06:30 pm Poster Session/Reception with hors d’oeuvres and cash bar (International Promenade)
08:00 pm Bering Ecosystem Study (BEST) Open Meeting (Sound Room)
George Hunt, Chair
Day 3 - Wednesday, 29 October 2003
Morning Theme: Drivers/Causes (Plenary Sessions in Bay Auditorium)
08:00 am Continental breakfast (Kiosks)
08:30 am Drivers and Causes of Arctic Environmental Change
Mark Serreze
Session Chair
University of Colorado
08:50 am Natural and Anthropogenic Drivers of Arctic Climate Change
Gavin Schmidt
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
09:20 am Interannual Variations of Polar Climate: Relationship to Annual Modes
Murry Salby
University of Colorado
09:50 am BREAK
10:20 am Spatial and Temporal Modes of Arctic Climate Variability Over the Past 600 Years
Konrad Hughen
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
10:50 am The Early 20th Century Warming in the Arctic: A Possible Mechanism
Lennart Bengtsson
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
11:20 am Arctic System Synthesis: Is the Arctic Headed Toward a New State?
Jonathan Overpeck
University of Arizona
11:50 am Student Presentation
12:15 pm LUNCH (Harbor Dining Room)
Afternoon Theme: Understanding and Predicting Change (Bay Auditorium)
01:45 pm How Does SEARCH Fit into the Larger Scheme of U.S. Climate Change Science?
James Mahoney
Director, U.S. Climate Change Science Program National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
02:15 pm How Do the Arctic and Subarctic Processes Interconnect? What Have We Learned?
Robert Dickson
The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science
03:05 pm BREAK
03:30 pm Panel Discussion: Understanding and Predicting Change in the Arctic System
This session will provide an opportunity to summarize and integrate the ideas and discussions from the three days of keynote presentations, parallel science sessions, and informal discussions. The panel discussion will begin with an overview by the moderator, followed by several questions posed to the panelists. Each panelist will have an opportunity to address the questions from the perspective of his or her expertise. The brief panel presentations will be followed by an open moderated discussion that includes comments and questions from all panelists and members of the audience.
Moderator: Andrew Revkin, New York Times

Panelists: Lawson Brigham, U.S. Arctic Research Commission
F. Stuart Chapin, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Robert Dickson, The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science
Jonathon Overpeck, Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, University of Arizona
Elaine Abraham, Alaska Native Science Commission
05:10 pm SEARCH Implementation: What is Being Done and Where Are the Gaps?
James Morison
Chair, SEARCH Science Steering Committee
University of Washington
05:30 pm Adjournment
Day 4 - Thursday, 30 October 2003
SEARCH International Implementation Forum (International Promenade)

09:00 am - 12:00 pm: An open forum to provide the international Arctic research community an opportunity to exchange ideas on participation in SEARCH implementation.