IPY: Back to the Future (BTF), Re-sampling research sites established more than 25 years ago to assess future trajectories of change in high latitude terrestrial ecosystem structure and function.

• Investigators: Craig E. Tweedie
• Funding Agency: US National Science Foundation ANS0732885
• Project Length: September 2007 – August 2011
• SEL Participants: Postdoc Vacancy 2, Sandra Villarreal, Mark Lara
• Web sites with more information on this project: http://classic.ipy.org/development/eoi/proposal-details.php?id=214

Summary:

Understanding environmental change in the Arctic has important implications for predicting the future state of the Earth System. To improve our knowledge of change in the Arctic, several recent studies have highlighted the fundamental need for an enhanced environmental observing system. In the absence of monitoring, revisiting, re-sampling and analyzing environmental change that has occurred at Arctic research sites established several decades ago represents a largely untapped change detection capacity. This approach is also likely to be one of the only means by which the trajectory of decadal change in arctic terrestrial ecosystem structure and function can be determined until an enhanced arctic observing network comes of age.The primary objective of this three-year International Polar Year (IPY) project is to determine how key structural and functional characteristics of high latitude arctic terrestrial ecosystems have changed over the past 25 or more years and assess if such trajectories of change are likely to continue in the future. Key activities include:

1. Establishing a focused international BTF coordination and information portal. This will include a substantial web site and interactive web-based information system.
2. Rescuing data and re-establishing and re-sampling four principal US and international BTF sites.   These include the International Biological Program (IBP) site near Barrow (AK), the Research in Arctic Terrestrial Ecosystems (RATE) site near Atqasuk (AK), and PhD dissertation sites of two well known and respected Arctic plant ecologists, Pat Webber (Central Baffin Island) and Terry Callaghan Disko Island (West Greenland - also part of the IBP).
3. Coordination of two international BTF synthesis meetings. One synthesis will focus on a special issue with site-based papers and the second will develop a cross-site synthesis of BTF data that is likely to lead to a publication in a prominent international journal.
4. Archiving data for open access at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
5. Educating the next generation of scientist by providing an opportunity for students to resample historical research sites and gain hands on research experience under the mentorship of Webber and Callaghan re-sampling their own PhD sites ~40 years after they were established.

This project is relevant to the IPY: BTF is an endorsed IPY full proposal (#214) requiring international coordination and cooperation to succeed; several international BTF IPY efforts have been funded and this award represents an opportunity for the US to contribute to this effort. The primary objective of this project aligns with key themes identified by the International and US National IPY Committees and benefits from past and existing research effort; Data rescue and site re-establishment build an observational and infrastructural legacy for the future; Synthesis of international BTF site-based studies address key questions challenging the global change sciences both in the Arctic and globally; unique education opportunities will be provided to the next generation of scientist.

Intellectual Merit: The proposed activities will have significant intellectual merit: knowledge of decadal change in ecosystem structure and function will be assessed at multiple sites and in multiple land cover types across the Arctic; model validation and the mechanistic and process level understanding of change detected with remote sensing will be improved; the impact of global change on arctic plant biodiversity and ecosystem structure and function will be assessed; and knowledge of spatiotemporal and biologically complex feedback mechanisms such as changes in surface albedo between land and atmospheric subsystems of the arctic will also be improved.

Broader Impacts: Undergraduate students, a graduate student and a postdoctoral fellow will be trained and mentored at a leading minority majority institution; students will be mentored by pioneering and accomplished Arctic researchers; outreach activities will include thematic workshops, public lectures and radio interviews; there will be a contribution to the need for large-scale environmental observatories in the Arctic from which improved data, infrastructure, and scientific legacies will be developed; and the value, utility and power of the BTF approach will be exemplified.