This award will provide funds for the partial support of an International Glaciology Society symposium on Sea Ice and its Interaction with the Ocean, Atmosphere, and Biosphere, to be held in Fairbanks, Alaska, in June 2000 under the scientific sponsorship of the International Glaciology Society. The IGS, based at Cambridge University, England, is the professional society for scientists who study snow and ice in all its forms. There is no comparable national organization. The IGS sponsors at least one symposium annually, with the presentations published in the peer-reviewed Annals of Glaciology. This symposium is timely since there has not been a symposium dedicated solely to sea ice and its processes since 1990, and a number of major multi- disciplinary sea ice programs will have been completed within the next two years. The symposium will provide a suitable forum for the dissemination of significant new results from (e.g.) the joint NSF/ONR Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic program, the DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program, the NSF/ONR submarine science program, the NSF Long-term Ecological Research site at Palmer Station, ongoing NASA satellite-based studies, and NOAA -sponsored arctic oceanographic research. Polar sea ice is both a bellwether and an agent of climate change. The effects of climate change on the characteristics of the Earth's sea ice cover will affect the physical, chemical, and biological processes beyond the immediate influence of the ice because these processes are interlinked on a global scale. Interdisciplinary studies involving a combination of field investigations, satellite-based remote sensing, and numerical modelling studies will make important contributions to increasing our knowledge of the geophysics of sea ice and its impacts on the global environment. Dissemination of research results at conferences such as this will promote future cooperative research, and maximize the benefits of research results.
