ISAC - International Study of Arctic Change

The ISAC International Program Office (IPO) is co-located with the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat (SPRS) at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. The IPO is currently staffed by the Executive Director with support from the SPRS. The IPO is working towards providing existing national arctic change programs with a venue for the development of seamless international collaboration and sharing of resources and common ground for consolidating arctic environmental change research efforts including partnering in efforts to sustain these at higher levels.

Maribeth Murray is the Executive Director of the ISAC IPO.  Her research and publications are focused on the paleo and more recent records of impacts and feedbacks from climate to people, marine mammals and fisheries in the Arctic and the extension of climate records using novel retrospective datasets. Her work is interdisciplinary placing emphasis on the integration of historical, archaeological, oceanographic, climatological and biogeochemical approaches to arctic system science and marine ecosystem sustainability initiatives. She has served as Chair of the Anthropology Department at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, as Director of the Human Dimensions of the Arctic System Core Office, as a member of the SEARCH Observing Change Panel, and as Editor of the Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska. She recieved a B.A. in Archaeology from Wilifrid Laurier University, an M.A. in Anthropology from Memorial University of Newfoundland and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from McMaster University . Since 1998 she has been on the faculty of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

 

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The ISAC Science Steering Group (SSG) takes overall responsibility for planning and implementation of ISAC science activities, including the development of the initial science plan and integration plan. Among other activities the SSG works to ensure the integration of the observation, modeling, and application elements of ISAC to produce an efficient, productive, and appropriately interdisciplinary program with a strong human dimension.

Michael Tjernström is a professor of meteorology at Stockholm University. His research and publications deal mostly with processes in the Arctic atmospheric that are important for the energy exchange at the surface of the Arctic Ocean, and hence ice melt, such as turbulent fluxes and cloud formation. This research is mainly experimental, and he has led icebreaker-based summer research expeditions to the central Arctic basin twice. He also works closely with modelers in improving and evaluating regional climate modeling of the Arctic  He is on the Science Advisory Committee for the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), was chair of the Swedish National Committy for IGBP and WCRP and is a member of the WCRP Observations and Assimilation Panel. He recieved a B.Sc in meteorology at Stockholm University in 1980 and a PhD in meteorology at Uppsala University in 1988 and has been a member of the faculty at Stockholm University since 1998.

 

 

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David Barber obtained his Bachelors (1981) and Masters (1987) from the University of \Manitoba, and his Ph.D. (1992) in Arctic Climatology from the University of Waterloo, Ontario. He was appointed to a faculty position at the University of Manitoba in 1993 and received a Canada Research Chair in Arctic System Science (www.chairs.gc.ca) in 2002. He is currently Director of the Centre for Earth Observation Science (www.umanitoba.ca/ceos), and Associate Dean (Research), Clayton H. Ridell Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources, University of Manitoba. Dr. Barber has extensive experience in the examination of the Arctic marine environment as a ‘system', and the effect climate change has on this system. His first Arctic field experience was in 1981 and he has conducted field experiments annually since then. His early work, with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, examined Arctic Marine Mammal habitat detection and change. His later work focused on the geophysics of snow and sea ice and in particular the response of the snow/ice system to oceanic and atmospheric forcing. His research group has a special interest in the coupling between physical and biological marine systems in the Arctic and in the effect of climate change on sea ice.

 

Since 1996 Christine Cuyler has been a research scientist at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, which is in Greenland's capital city, Nuuk. She obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, while her Masters and Ph.D. are from the University of Oslo, Norway, where she studied Svalbard reindeer. Currently Christine is responsible for population assessment and research on Greenland's two large herbivores, caribou (Rangifer tarandus ssp.) and muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus), and providing management advice to the Greenland Self-rule government about these two species.

Jean-Claude Gascard is a physical oceanographer at Université Pierre et Marie Curie in France. He also the Project Leader for the DAMOCLES (Developing Arctic Modeling and Observing Capabilities for Long-term Environmental Studies) consortium which consist of 48 institutions in 11 European countries plus the Russian Federation and Belarus. DAMOCLES is an integrated ice-atmosphere-ocean monitoring and forecasting system designed for observing, understanding and quantifying climate changes in the Arctic.

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Peter Schlosser is the Associate Director and Director of Research of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Vinton Professor of Earth and Environmental Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. He is also a Senior Staff Scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, with research interests focusing on the application of noble gases and other isotopes to natural systems with emphasis on the oceans and groundwater. Schlosser's research is directed towards understanding the Earth’s natural water bodies including oceans, groundwater and continental waters, their perturbation by human activity, and the possibility of designing engineering solutions to the problems caused by their development.  He is a past member of National Academy of Science panels on the International Polar Year and the Arctic Observing Network. He served as a co-chair of two Arctic Research Commission/NSF Working Groups on Arctic Research Support and Logistics. He is currently the chair of the science steering committee of the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH). He received his B.S. and M.S. from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, in 1981, and his Ph.D. in physics from the same institution in 1985.

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Dr. Koji Shimada is a physical oceanographer of Department of Ocean Sciences at Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology. His research is in the climate dynamics with a focus on the recent catastrophic changes in the Arctic. He is also an officer (education and outreach) of the Oceanographic Society of Japan and a member of Japan national committee for IASC, Science Council of Japan. Prior to his teaching position at Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, he worked as a leader of Arctic research project in the Japan Agency for Marine and Science Technology (JAMSTEC) where he conducted extensive field researches in the Arctic Ocean every year since 1996. He earned his Ph.D. in geophysical fluid dynamics from Kyushu University, and B.A. and M.S. from Tohoku University.

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Dr. John Walsh is a President s Professor of Global Climate Change at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks (UAF).  He is also the Director of the NOAA/UAF Cooperative Institute for Alaska Research and of the Center for Global Change.  His primary research interests are: Arctic climate change over the decade-to-century timescale; predictability of climate change in high latitudes, sea ice variations; and extreme weather events in the context of climate change. He was the lead author for the cryosphere chapter of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (2005) and a lead author for the Polar Regions chapter of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (2007).  He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Climate.  Prior to his position at the University of Alaska, Walsh spent 30 years on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana.  He is the co-author of an undergraduate textbook on severe and hazardous weather.  He earned his Ph.D. in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974 and his B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1970.

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Johanna Wandel is Assistant Professor in Department of Geography and Environmental Management and a Core Member of the Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Prior to joining the University of Waterloo, she coordinated the Community Adaptation and Vulnerability in Arctic Regions (CAVIAR) IPY project and managed the Global Environmental Change Group at the University of Guelph. Her research interests are centred on how human communities and societies cope with and adapt to changing global conditions, with an emphasis on resource-dependent and marginalized groups. She holds a B.Sc. from Trent University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Guelph.

Jinping Zhao is a physical oceanographer at the College of Physical and Environmental Oceanography, Ocean University of China. His research is focused on polar physical oceanography and sea ice, ocean circulation and global climate change, and the current system along the continental shelf of China Seas. Current research programs include: 1) study on the structure of Arcitc Circumpolar Boundary Current and its impact on climate change; 2) adjustment of the thermal structure in Arcitc Ocean and its feedback during global change process; and 3) interaction of sea ice decline and Upper Ocean warming, and associated climatologic and ecological processes. Dr. Zhao is presently the Chairman of Chinese Committee of IAPSO (International Association for Physical Science of Oceanography), IUGG.

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