Bonnie Light

Selected Projects

  • Rotten Ice

    Rotten Ice

    The response of Arctic sea ice to a warming climate includes decreases in extent, lower ice concentration, and reduced ice thickness. Summer melt seasons are lengthening with earlier melt onsets and later autumn freezeups. We believe this will likely lead to an increase in so-called “rotten ice” in the Arctic at the end of summer. This ice has experienced a long summer of melt, is fragile, difficult to work with, and has received little attention. Comprehensive information on its physical and microbiological properties does not exist. Our team is embarking on an ambitious field campaign in order to study this poorly-understood type of sea ice in the context of its microstructural properties and potential for habitability.

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  • Collaborative Research: Warming and irradiance measurements in the Arctic: Determining the link betweensolar energy absorbtion and surface warming through long term observations

    The objectives of this research are to quantify the connection between seasonal warming of arctic surface waters and the absorption of solar energy, and additionally to identify the presence and seasonal cycling of materials responsible for this absorption. Seasonal changes in the attenuation of solar radiation within the sea ice and upper 30m of the water column will be measured at high temporal resolution (hourly) by a new proof of concept buoy system. Temperature and PAR (photosynthetically active radiation) irradiance measurements will be made using optical sensors paired with thermisters within the water column and sea ice. A fluorometer will…

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  • Salts and soils on Mars

    We propose to use data analysis and modeling to constrain the salt chemistry of the soil measured by Phoenix in the context of soil chemistry measured by the Viking Landers (VLs), Mars Pathfinder (MPF) and the two Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs).

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  • Ocean Surfaces on Snowball Earth

    It is argued that today only Antarctica provides sufficiently analogous ice surfaces to the specialized ones that are thought to have occurred under a Snowball Earth scenario. A combination of field observations of cold snow-free sea ice, salt encrusted sea-ice surfaces and blue glacial ice, laboratory experiments and modeling will be carried out to test the viability of the Snowball Earth hypothesis.

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  • Pan-Arctic climate and ecosystem response to historical and projected changes in the seasonality of sea ice melt and growth

    This project will carry out quantitative assessment of the drivers, effects, and ramifications of the seasonal timing of sea ice melt onset and freeze initiation over the observational record and using earth system model projections of future climate.

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  • Sea Ice, Sunlight, and Biogeochemistry in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in a Changing Climate

    The focus of this project is to work collaboratively with Dr. Donald Perovich (CRREL) in support of a NASA sponsored program, ICESCAPES. Bonnie Light will support this project by helping to characterize the morphological and optical properties of the sea ice cover through field measurements, radiative transfer modeling, and synthesis.

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  • Producing an Updated Synthesis of the Arctic’s Marine Primary Production Regime and its Controls

    The focus of this project is to synthesize existing studies and data relating to Arctic Ocean primary production and its changing physical controls such as light, nutrients, and stratification, and to use this synthesis to better understand how primary production varies in time and space and as a function of climate change.

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ABOUT PSC

  • Bonnie Light, PSC Chair, Welcome»
  • The Polar Science Center is a group of dedicated investigators conducting interdisciplinary research on the oceanography, climatology, meteorology, biology and ecology of the ice-covered regions on Earth and elsewhere in the solar system. Learn more »

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