The Arctic Report Card (hereafter 'ARC') has been issued annually since 2006. It is a timely and peer-reviewed source for clear, reliable and concise environmental information on the current state of different components of the Arctic environmental system relative to historical records. The ARC is intended for a wide audience, including scientists, teachers, students, decision-makers, and the general public interested in the Arctic environment and science.
ARC 2017 contains 12 contributions (we call them essays) prepared by an international team of 85 researchers from 12 different countries. As in previous years, independent peer review of ARC 2017 was organized by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) of the Arctic Council.
ARC 2017 is organized into three sections: Vital Signs, Other Indicators, and Frostbites. The Vital Signs section is for annual updates on the same seven topics: Surface Air Temperature; Terrestrial Snow Cover; Greenland Ice Sheet; Sea Ice; Sea Surface Temperature; Arctic Ocean Primary Productivity; and Tundra Greenness. The Other Indicators section is for topics that will be updated every 2-4 years, many of which have appeared in previous ARCs (e.g., Fisheries, Permafrost, Ocean Acidification, Glaciers and Ice Caps, to name a few). The Frostbites section is for reports on new and newsworthy items, describing emerging issues, and addressing topics that relate to long-term scientific observations in the Arctic.
People occasionally ask questions such as "How are essay topics selected?" or "Why is topic X not in the Arctic Report Card?" The short answer is that each ARC strives to include some new topics as well as recurrent topics, and thus cover many topics over a period of years. In this way the ARC can achieve a comprehensiveness over time that is not possible given the severe time constraints in its production schedule. A complete list of topics covered since the first publication of the ARC is available at Previous Report Cards. Click on these hyperlinks for a list of all ARC 2017 authors and their affiliations, and a list of references for all 12 essays.
Acknowledgments
Financial support for Arctic Report Card 2017 was provided by the Arctic Research Program in the NOAA Climate Program Office, and via research sponsored by the Cooperative Institute for Alaska Research with funds from the NOAA Administration under cooperative agreement NA13OAR4320056 with the University of Alaska. The editors thank AMAP for organizing the independent peer review and those who provided review comments.
How to Cite Arctic Report Card 2017
Citing the complete report:
J. Richter-Menge, J. E. Overland, J. T. Mathis, and E. Osborne, Eds., 2017: Arctic Report Card 2017, http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card.
Citing an essay (example):
Derksen, C., R. Brown, L. Mudryk, K. Luojus, and S. Helfrich, 2017: Terrestrial Snow Cover [in Arctic Report Card 2017], http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card.
Media Contact Information
Monica Allen
NOAA Communications & NOAA Research
301-734-1123
Banner Photograph
Image Credit: Clouds over the Igichuk Hills, NOAA/K. Wood. View on Flickr.
December 4, 2017