A critical and largely unexamined component of global change is the oceanographic impact of arctic fresh water input and changing depth-geometry of straits and shelves fringing the Arctic Ocean. This award supports a workshop at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, in April 1999 to explore the complex effects of eustatic and isostatic changes, ice sheet coverage, fresh water input, and variable sea-ice dynamics in the Arctic on global ocean circulation during the past 20,000 years. This venue will access recent advances in Arctic Basin oceanographic modeling by the U.S. Navy, which provide a rapid means to evaluate many outstanding paleoceanographic and paleoclimatic hypotheses. The workshop will refine boundary conditions for the Arctic Ocean, surrounding shelf seas and channels for the past 20,000 years, providing new insights for evolving geophysical models of the climate system.
