National Academies Press: OpenBook

Scientific Value of Arctic Sea Ice Imagery Derived Products (2009)

Chapter: Appendix A: Statement of Task

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Statement of Task." National Research Council. 2009. Scientific Value of Arctic Sea Ice Imagery Derived Products. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12631.
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Page 31

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Appendix A Statement of Task The National Academy of Sciences is helping facilitate the increased involvement of scientists in answering questions related to climate, energy, and environmental change. The goal is both to advance scientific understanding of global climate and other environmental and disaster-related phenomena, and consider the implications for both fundamental scientific understanding and national security. For this particular activity, The National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council will form a small ad hoc committee of experts to assess the scientific value and usefulness of Imagery Derived Products on Arctic sea ice and identify the images that would be most valuable to Arctic ice research if publicly released. The panel will carry out the following tasks:  Evaluate the collection of Arctic Ice Imagery Derived Products, a subset of the Global Fiducial Program data from U.S. National Imagery Systems, and assess their scientific value and usefulness in furthering the understanding of important climate parameters and processes.  Identify those images from the Arctic Ice fiducials (observation sites) that would be most valuable to arctic ice research if released for open use. The analysis should identify the high priority images, explain why they are important, and describe what could be done with the data if such images were openly available. 31

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During the 1990s, a government program brought together environmental scientists and members of the intelligence community to consider how classified assets and data could be applied to further the understanding of environmental change. As part of the Medea program, collection of overhead classified imagery of sea ice at four sites around the Arctic basin was initiated in 1999, and two additional sites were added in 2005. Collection of images during the summer months at these six locations has continued until the present day. Several hundred unclassified images with a nominal resolution of 1 meter have been derived from the classified images collected at the 6 Arctic sites.

To assist in the process of making the unclassified derived imagery more widely useful, the National Research Council reviewed the derived images and considered their potential uses for scientific research. In this book, we explore the importance of sea ice in the Arctic and illustrate the types of information--often unique in its detail--that the derived images could contribute to the scientific discussion.

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