Abstract OPP-9614667 ANDREWS UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO This project is a joint project between Andrews and colleagues at the University of Colorado and Pielke and colleagues at Colorado State University. It is designed to examine the role of lake ice in the arctic climate/environmental system. The duration and thickness of lake ice cover in the Eastern Canadian Arctic is thought to be a critical component in the rates of sediment accumulation and primary productivity. The work of this project will link current modeling efforts on the formation and extent of the annual lake cycle, a remote sensing component which will map out the temporal and spatial variability of lake ice on today's landscape, and a paleo component based on data from GISP2, Genesis modeling, and lake records accumulated previously by the PIs. The PIs plan to use present-day climate data from stations on Baffin Island to forecast lake ice histories for extreme years and for average conditions. These estimates will be compared with the results of mapping the pattern of lake ice disappearance and growth from satellite imagery. The final element will be to use the lake ice model to generate a series of histories of lake ice given input from a variety of paleo perspectives.
