NOAA, partners to reveal 2017 Arctic Report Card

University of Alaska Fairbanks permafrost researcher Vladimir Romanovsky will join fellow scientists at a news conference Tuesday, Dec. 12, to discuss their latest observations of the Arctic.

The scientists will present the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2017 Arctic Report Card starting at 6 a.m. Alaska Standard Time, 9 a.m. CST. The event will be streamed live from the 2017 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in New Orleans, Room 346-347 of the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

Led by acting NOAA Administrator Timothy Gallaudet, the panel will provide this year’s report on sea ice, snow cover, air temperature, ocean temperature, the Greenland ice sheet, vegetation and ecosystem changes. In addition to Gallaudet and Romanovsky, other panelists will be Jeremy Mathis, director of NOAA’s Arctic Research Program, Emily Osborne of NOAA’s Arctic Research Program and Stephani Zador of NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

The Arctic Report Card, updated annually since 2006, demonstrates the importance of long-term observing programs to effectively measure significant changes in the Arctic.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Alaska journalists and those not at the meeting can participate in the press briefing virtually at the AGU press events webpage: http://live.projectionnet.com/AGUPress/FM2017.aspx. Reporters can visit this site throughout the meeting to watch press events in real time and ask questions via an online chat. For more information and instructions, click on the “Webstreaming” button in the meeting’s media center website at https://fallmeeting.agu.org/2017/media-center/.

If, for some reason, the streaming does not work, the AGU press team will immediately switch to making the briefing available via teleconference. To call into the teleconference, dial 877-709- 0939. The participant passcode is 192-424-7921. The teleconference will only be available if streaming goes down.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Vladimir Romanovsky, veromanovsky@alaska.edu

ON THE WEB: The Arctic Report Card 2017 website at http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card will be updated with 2017 findings, photographs, graphics, a video and other information at the start of the news conference.

Visit the UAF Geophysical Institute’s Permafrost Laboratory website at www.permafrostwatch.org.