Dear CAPT Gillard, I received a copy of your message with regards to Naval Operations in the Arctic Ocean. I was aware of the symposium and in fact had hoped to attend, but was not able to. I am interested in both research and educational aspects of this issue. I teach Polar Meteorology to Navy officers here at the Naval Postgraduate School. I place special emphasis on ship operations, in particular vessel icing and em/eo propagation in the Arctic. You may see the syllabus and several of the lectures, available for viewing on the web at http://www.met.nps.navy.mil/~guestps/OC3212/. In addition I have created a web site on Polar Meteorology, which is the only one of it's kind in existence: http://www.weather.nps.navy.mil/~psguest/polarmet/ I use this web site for my course, but I also envision that it could be used as a refresher or introduction for Naval Personnel that may be going (perhaps at short notice) to the Arctic. This web site is not a complete course. It does have sections on vessel icing (check out the photographs!) and climate change, both of which are relevant to the symposium topic. I am trying to obtain funding to expand the web module; my next priority is a section on Polar Lows, which are very hard to predict and can have devastating effects on vessels. If you have any ideas on possible funding sources for this effort I would appreciate any comments you might have... My research involves small-scale ice-ocean-atmosphere interactions in polar seas and marginal ice zones. I have been to the Arctic Ocean 8 times on research vessels (and Antarctic Seas once) so I am intimately aware of problems with vessel operations in these regions. I just came back from the 6th AMS Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceanography. Although large scale climate changes are not my research specialty, I attended several talks on this topic and am quite familiar with the issues. I hope you don't mind if I state some opinions on these issue, and they are just opinions, not facts. From what I have read and seen, I think the Navy is wise to consider the possibility of a greatly reduced ice cover in the future. However, I think the prediction that "sometime in the next 10-20 years, it will be accessible for more than 6 months/year, and that in the next few decades, it may be open all year round" is overstated. Most of the recent loss of ice in the Arctic is believed to be more related to changes in the large-scale circulation patterns related to the "Arctic Oscillation" and it's close relation the "North Atlantic Oscillation" than to anthropogenic global warming. In the spirit of a healthy scientific skepticism, (not pickiness) I respectfully point out that it is not that correct that "Each year, more of that ocean is navigable for a longer period than the previous year." It really depends on where you look; some years there is more ice, some years there is less. I do agree there does seem to be an overall trend toward decreasing ice cover and thickness. Although some recent papers state that the ice is getting much thinner, these results may have sampling problems and it may be that the thicker ice has just moved to different (unsampled) locations. We are seeing significant changes (warming and less ice), but we cannot really say with any confidence that these trends will continue over the next 10-20 years. As for the possibility that the ice will completely disappear even in winter; this is highly unlikely and has not been predicted by any decent global climate model. However, the uncertainty on all of these issues is high and as I stated above, I think it is smart to at least consider how the Navy might be affected, as long as we are honest in our statements to Navy planners that greatly reduced ice is only a possibility, not a certainty. I would like to have a student look into the issue of Naval Operations in possible future Arctic scenarios and I believe I have the expertise to guide an effort that would be relevant to the Navy's needs. Unfortunately I have only one student working with me now . She is working on radiation issues and will graduate next September. Therefore she would not be able to look into this issue. I will advertise the Navy's interest in looking at this problem on my web page of "thesis topics" and in conversations with students. If funding were available, I could look at the problem myself. I believe that my 20-year experience working for the Navy and almost as long studying and teaching about Arctic issues would allow me or my students to make a significant contributions to the Navy's needs concerning operations in the Arctic. Please feel free to contact me by phone or email if you would like to discuss anything in more detail. I am gone the rest of this week on vacation, but I look forward to hearing more from you and others about this issue. Thank you Peter Guest, Research Associate Professor of Meteorology