Ignatius Rigor

Selected Projects

  • Interaction of Air, Sea Ice, and Ocean Around Antarctica

    Observations of surface air pressure (SAP) and surface air temperature (SAT) provide the foundation of our ability to forecast weather and ice conditions, and our ability to understand the earth’s climate and climate change. These basic variables are monitored through out the globe by weather stations on land, moored buoys along the coast, and drifting buoys in most of the world’s oceans. However, the Southern Ocean and sea ice around Antarctica continue to be one of the least sampled areas of the planet. This lack of observations around Antarctica hinders our ability to accurately predict weather (Bromwich and Cassano, 2001),…

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  • 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.

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  • Implications of Arctic Sea Ice Reduction on Tropospheric Bromine, Ozone, and Mercury Chemical Process, Transport, and Distribution

    The objective of this project is to investigate impacts of Arctic sea ice reduction on bromine, ozone, and mercury chemical processes, transport, and distribution from sea ice surfaces on the Arctic Ocean, and atmospheric transport of these chemicals to high mountains on land.

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  • UpTempO: Measuring the Upper Layer Temperature of the Arctic Ocean

    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.

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  • International Arctic Buoy Progamme

    The participants of the IABP work together to maintain a network of drifting buoys in the Arctic Ocean to provide meteorological and oceanographic data for real-time operational requirements and research purposes including support to the World Climate Research Programme and the World Weather Watch Programme.

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  • Forecasting the Conditions of Arctic Sea Ice on Daily to Seasonal Time Scales

    The extent of arctic sea ice during the summer has declined to near-record minima during the last several summers. Can we predict future minima? Our weekly to seasonal forecasts provided by the National/Naval Ice Center help residents and navigators in the Arctic make better decisions regarding sea ice.

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  • Arctic Surface Air Temperatures for the Past 100 Years

    This project will produce authoritative SAT data sets covering the Arctic Ocean from 1901 to present, which will be used to better understand Arctic 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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