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.
Posts Tagged «Project»
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).
Sea Ice Thickness Estimates Obtained from Satellites Using Submarines and Other In Situ Observations
We compare the observations of arctic sea ice thickness estimates from satellites with in situ observations – collected by submarine cruises and moorings under the sea ice, by direct measurement during field camps, by electromagnetic instruments flown over the sea ice, and by buoys drifting with the sea ice – to provide a careful assessment of our capabilities to monitor the thickness of sea ice.
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.
Project investigators aim to improve upon the existing seasonal ensemble forecasting system and use the system to predict sea ice conditions in the arctic and subarctic seas with lead times ranging from two weeks to three seasons.
The purpose of this project is coordination of the Seasonal Ice Zone Reconnaissance Surveys (SIZRS) program of repeated ocean, ice, and atmospheric measurements across the Beaufort-Chukchi sea seasonal sea ice zone (SIZ) utilizing US Coast Guard Arctic Domain Awareness (ADA) flights of opportunity. SIZRS, like the ONR Arctic and Global Prediction Program, is motivated by the rapid decline in summer ice extent that has occurred in recent years. The SIZ is the region between maximum winter sea ice extent and minimum summer sea ice extent. As such, it contains the full range of positions of the marginal ice zone (MIZ)…
Through this project, investigators will characterize the seasonal linkages between the land surface greenness and a suite of land, atmosphere, and ocean characteristics, focusing on the Beringia/ Beaufort Sea, where there have been strong positive increases in the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) over the past 25 years, and the west-central Arctic Eurasia region, where the NDVI trends have been slightly negative.
This project is motivated by recent findings showing the sensitivity of Arctic Ocean circulation to background deep-ocean diapycnal mixing. Mixing in the stratified ocean is related to internal wave energy, which tends to be low under the Arctic Ocean ice cover. Consequently, as ice cover declines background mixing may increase and, among other changes, bring more Atlantic Water heat to the surface to melt ice, a potentially important positive climate feedback. To understand the influence of background mixing and to improve models of the changing Arctic Ocean, we are taking advantage of the latest analysis techniques to examine existing internal…
SEARCH is an interagency effort to understand the nature, extent, and future development of the system-scale change presently seen in the Arctic. These changes are occuring across terrestrial, oceanic, atmospheric, and human systems.
SHEBA is motivated by the large discrepancies among simulations by global climate models (GCMs) of the present and future climate in the arctic and by uncertainty about the impact of the arctic on climate change. These problems arise from an incomplete understanding of the physics of vertical energy exchange within the ocean/ice/atmosphere system. To address this problem, the SHEBA project is focused on enhancing understanding of the key processes that determine ice albedo feedback in the arctic pack ice and on a applying this knowledge to improve climate modeling.
Ian Joughin serves as Deputy PI on the GSFC CryoDyn Earth Ventures 2 project. He is developing science and measurement objectives for the mission. He is also evaluating whether the mission and instrument are consistent with these objectives and provides expert advice to guide the mission planning and utilization of the data.
The AOMIP science goals are to validate and improve Arctic Ocean models in a coordinated fashion and investigate variability of the Arctic Ocean and sea ice at seasonal to decadal time scales, and identify mechanisms responsible for the observed changes.
This part of the larger NASA ICESCAPE project examines the long-term, seasonal variability in phytoplankton abundance as a function of changes in sea ice cover, stratification, and temperature regimes measured in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas throughout the growing season.
PI: Mike Steele; Co-I Ron Lindsay, Axel Schweiger, Jinlun Zhang The main objective of this study is to determine the fate of solar energy absorbed by the arctic seas during summer, with a specific focus on its impact on the sea ice pack. Investigators further seek to understand the fate of this heat during the winter and even beyond to the following summer.
This project supports the design, development, and implementation of a component of an Arctic Ocean Observing System in the Switchyard region of the Arctic Ocean (north of Greenland and Nares Strait) that serves the scientific studies developed for the IPY (International Polar Year), SEARCH (Study of Environmental ARctic Change), and related programs.
Measurements of Arctic sea-ice thickness are critical to understanding the global climate system. One of the best sources of thickness data are upward looking sonar measurements of ice draft made by U.S. Navy submarines (draft is the submerged portion of floating sea ice, about 93% of the thickness).
PI: Mike Steele A 3D animation, “The Important Little Life of Dylan Diatom,” shows the plight of a diatom in the Arctic Ocean. This slice of Dylan’s life, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and animated by student Anna Czoski, shows middle school students the role of phytoplankton in the Arctic.
We are employing new remote sensing methods applied to multiple satellite data sets to measure the total discharge of ice from the grounded Antarctic Ice Sheet. This effort also will provide the most comprehensive mapping ever of the grounding line position, as well as ice thickness and velocity along and in the vicinity of the grounding line. These products are sensitive indicators of changes and will serve as benchmark data sets of the International Polar Year suitable for subsequent comparisons to identify and quantify future changes in the ice sheet.
The purpose of this project is to improve satellite retrievals of atmospheric temperature, humidity and clouds. Retrievals are based on the physical-statistical retrieval method of Chedin et al. (1985, Improved Iteration Inversion Algorithm, 3I). The method has been improved for use in sea ice-covered areas (Francis 1994) and the data set has been designed to address the particular needs of the Polar research community. The data set represents the so called Path-P as designated by the TOVS Science Working Group.
This project aims to measure the time history of summer warming and subsequent fall cooling of the seasonally open water areas of the Arctic Ocean. Investigators will focus on those areas with the greatest ice retreat i.e., the northern Beaufort, Chukchi, East Siberian, and Laptev seas. Their method will be to build up to 10 relatively inexpensive ocean thermistor string buoys per year, to be deployed in the seasonally ice-free regions of the Arctic Ocean. Arctic-ADOS buoy data will be provided to both the research and operational weather forecasting communities in near real time on the International Arctic Buoy Program (IABP) web site.
This project will investigate, through modeling and data assimilation, the historical evolution of the Antarctic sea ice–ocean system from 1979 to the present to enhance our understanding of the large-scale changes that have occurred in the sea ice and the upper ocean in response to changes in atmospheric circulation.
The overall objective of the proposed research is to collect detailed information about the thermal and physical state of the ice and ocean surface in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas over at least two complete summer melt seasons in order to better understand the physical processes that control the melt, to better represent them in numerical models, and to better predict the seasonal evolution of the ice cover. This will be done using Coast Guard Arctic Domain Awareness (ADA) flights based out of Kodiak, Alaska.