The 2018 Arctic Report Card—A Decade of Reporting on the Arctic Environment

The Arctic Report Card 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 Report Card is intended for a wide audience, including scientists, teachers, students, decision-makers and the general public interested in the Arctic environment and science.

This paper presents the 2018 Arctic Report Card, to be released in December 2018, and highlights the collaborative NOAA effort to effectively disseminate the information in this annual release. The 2018 Arctic Report Card reported on a significant Arctic season. Considering this significant season, a slightly different approach was taken to prepare for this report card. The Arctic Report Card includes three sections: Vital Signs, Indicators, and Frostbites. The Vital Signs section includes annual updates on the same seven topics: Air Temperature; Terrestrial Snow Cover; Greenland Ice Sheet; Sea Ice; Sea Surface Temperature; Ocean Primary Productivity; and Tundra Greenness.

The Indicators section is for topics (Ozone, Ocean Acidification, UV Radiation, Permafrost, Glaciers and Ice Caps, to name a few) that have appeared in previous Report Cards but which will now be updated every 2-4 years.

The Frostbites section is a feature section for reports on new and newsworthy items, describing emerging issues, and addressing topics that relate to long-term scientific observations in the Arctic.

Supplementary URL: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card