A proposed NASA Field Campaign project that aims to improve understanding and prediction of land-ocean interactions in the rapidly changing Arctic coastal zone, and assess vulnerability, responses, and feedbacks of coastal ecosystems, communities, and natural resources to current and future pressures. Scoping study funded by NASA's Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry (OBB) Program For programmatic inquiries contact the NASA OBB Program Manager to provide feedback and obtain programmatic information Dr. Paula Bontempi Tel: Contact us - for project information & feedback Visit our Website: Participate in upcoming meetings Arctic-COLORS Upcoming Meetings:  CERF rd Biennial Conference, Portland, OR, 8-12 November 2015  2015 AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA, December 2015  2016 Ocean Sciences Meeting, New Orleans, LA, February 2016  2016 NASA Ocean Color Research Team Meeting, Spring 2016 Arctic – COLORS Scoping Study Principal Investigators: (alphabetical order) Carlos Del Castillo Marjorie Friedrichs Peter Hernes Antonio Mannino Patricia Matrai Joseph Salisbury Maria Tzortziou Matthew Alkire Marcel Babin Simon Bélanger Emmanuel Boss Eddy Carmack Lee Cooper Suzanne Craig Jerome Fiechter Joaquim Goes Peter Griffith David Kirchman Diane Lavoie Bonnie Light James McClelland Donald McLennan Irina Overeem Chris Polashenski Michael Rawlins Rick Reynolds Michael Steele Dariusz Stramski Robert Striegl James Syvitski Suzanne Tank Muyin Wang Tom Weingartner Arctic – COLORS Collaborators: (alphabetical order) Visit our Website:

W HERE ? The geographical extent of this Arctic land- ocean exchange study is envisioned to extend in a core area from the Yukon Delta to the Mackenzie Delta, from the head of tidal influence on to the coastal shelf (pink-shaded region on map) A comprehensive report to NASA outlining the major scientific questions and the initial study design and implementation concept for Arctic-COLORS (see website). Deliverable S CIENCE OBJECTIVES Arctic-COLORS will be focused on five overarching questions:  How and where are materials from the land, atmosphere, and ocean transformed within the land- ocean continuum of the Arctic coastal zone?  How does thawing of Arctic permafrost—either directly through coastal erosion or indirectly through changing freshwater loads from upstream thaw— translate to changes in coastal ecology and biogeochemistry?  How do changes in snow/ice conditions and coastal circulation influence Arctic coastal ecology and biogeochemistry?  How do changes in fluxes of materials, heat, and buoyancy from the land, atmosphere, and ocean influence Arctic coastal ecology and biogeochemistry?  How do changing environmental (short-term) and climate (long-term) conditions alter the Arctic coastal zone’s availability and use of ecosystem services? W HEN ? The proposed timeline for Arctic-COLORS is , (i) to overlap with the first three years of NASA’s new ocean color mission PACE, and (ii) to coincide with NASA’s ABoVE field program, thus linking processes in the Arctic coastal oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. W HAT ? Intensive process experiments will be conducted from river mouths to outer shelves and at three coastal erosion sites. Key biogeochemical measurements will include primary productivity, air-sea fluxes, photooxidation, optics, grazing, phytoplankton taxonomy, land-sea fluxes of C, nutrients and sediment processes. To resolve the seasonal cycle associated with biogeochemical processes in this region, five cruises/deployments will be conducted each year throughout each of four years. Survey studies will also be conducted twice each year to determine the interaction between the coastal ocean and the shallower shelf regions occupied during the process studies, and distinguish the effects of point sources versus distributed inputs to the shelf. Both the survey and process experiments will provide the critical data required to constrain coupled land-ocean models of the region and validate remote-sensing algorithms. Map of the Arctic-COLORS study region & watersheds. Chukchi Sea Successfully addressing the Arctic-COLORS science objectives will require:  a highly interdisciplinary approach  advanced remote sensing and modeling tools  internationally coordinated observations from various platforms across a range of scales  coordinated engagement of regional authorities and local communities. Reflecting these needs, Arctic-COLORS is the result of a collective effort by members of the broader science community who have been actively engaged in a series of outreach activities and substantially contributed to different stages of the proposed planning and design for this integrative oceanographic field campaign in the coastal Arctic. The objectives of Arctic-COLORS can only be addressed by using NASA’s unique multidisciplinary satellite (and airborne) remote-sensing data assets and modeling tools. Arctic - COLORS will provide a needed linkage between field campaigns focusing on the Arctic open ocean environment (e.g. ICESCAPE, ArcticNET), and field activities focusing on Arctic river processes, chemistry and fluxes, including NASA’s Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE). We are looking forward to your feedback Visit our website: