Projects

Seasonality of Circumpolar Tundra: Ocean and Atmosphere Controls and Effects on Energy and Carbon Budgets

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.

Seasonal Ensemble Forecasts of Arctic Sea Ice

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.

RADARSAT Geophysical Processor System at the Polar Science Center

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.

North Pole Environmental Observatory

The observatory is staffed by an international research team that establishes a camp at the North Pole each spring to take the pulse of the Arctic Ocean and learn how the world’s northernmost sea helps regulate global climate.

Life of Sea Ice: Art Institute of Seattle Video for APL-UW Educational Outreach

Students from the Art Institute of Seattle joined APL-UW polar scientists in Barrow, Alaska, to document experiments on the land-fast ice. AIS created a video, The Life of Sea Ice, for APL-UW educational outreach.

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.

Impacts of Arctic Storms on Landfast Ice Variations

This project is to examine over 30 years of landfast ice records, cyclone tracks and intensity along with frequency and timing of coastal high wind conditions, nearshore pack ice drift, and coastal weather observations in two representative arctic coastal regions.

High Latitude Dynamics

Our overarching goals are to study and understand the physical processes in the high latitude oceans, including large-scale circulation, shelf-basin interactions, and water mass formation; linkages between polar oceans and the lower latitudes; and the role of polar processes in climate. We do this primarily with observations, drawing on theory and modelling results to explain processes we observe. Our primary tools are subsurface moorings in ice-covered waters, which we deploy in several regions to study different questions.

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.

Changing Seasonality of the Arctic: Alteration of Production Cycles and Trophic Linkages in Response to Changes in Sea Ice and Upper Ocean Physics

PI: Jinlun ZhangThis project will investigate future changes in the seasonal linkages and interactions among arctic sea ice, the water column, and the marine production cycles and trophic structure as an integrated system. This is a collaborative project led by Jinlun Zhang with Mike Steele, Univ. of WA, Y. Spitz, Oregon State Univ., C. Ashjian, Woods Hole, and R. Campbell, Univ. of Rhode Island.Read More

Changing Sea Ice and the Bering Sea Ecosystem

The Bering Sea – lying at the northern end of the Pacific Ocean and north of the Aleutian Chain – is the source of over 50% of the total US fish catch and the home to immense populations of birds and marine mammals. This project uses a state-of-the-art numerical ocean-ice model to investigate prior (and predict future) changes in the Bering Sea ice cover and study the impacts of these changes on Bering Sea marine and eco-systems.

Bering Strait: Pacific Gateway to the Arctic

The Bering Strait is the only Pacific gateway to the Arctic Ocean. Waters flowing through the strait are a key source of nutrients, heat and freshwater for the Arctic. Since 1990, APL-UW has measured the properties of this throughflow using long-term in situ moorings, supported by annual cruises. Project details, data, cruise reports and papers are available on the project web site.

Atlantic Water in the Arctic

Atlantic Waters (AWs) are volumetrically the largest inflow to the Arctic Ocean.  They form the major subsurface circum-arctic oceanic transport system, and are the greatest pan-arctic reservoir of oceanic heat. This project draws on a variety of observational data to study flow pathways,  fundamental properties and change in the Atlantic waters in the western Arctic.

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.

Arctic Mixing: Changing Seasonality of Wind-driven Mixing

The Arctic Ocean is (currently) a remarkably quiet place, as the presence of sea-ice isolates the ocean from the mixing effects of wind.  In this interdisciplinary project, we examine how the upper Arctic may change if sea-ice retreat increases.  We use observations and models to study Arctic mixed layer depths, internal wave energy, and the mixing of nutrients into the photic zone, with particular interest on  impacts on Arctic ecosystems.

The Fresh Water Switchyard of the Arctic Ocean

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.

IceBridge Science Team

IceBridge is a NASA project that supports the acquisition of various data from aircraft in both polar regions that will bridge the gap in coverage between the now defunct ICESat satellite and the next generation ICESat II to be launched in 2015 at the earliest. The main focuses of the data acquisition will be laser altimetry and radar measurements of ice sheets (Greenland and Antarctica) and sea ice (Arctic and Antarctica).

The Impact of Submarine Depth, Speed Sonar Systems on Arctic Sea-ice Draft Measurements

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).

Projections of an Ice-Diminished Arctic Ocean – Retrospection and Future Projection

Significant changes in arctic climate have been detected in recent years. One of the most striking changes is the decline of sea ice concurrent with changes in atmospheric circulation and increased surface air temperature.

TOVS Polar Pathfinder Path-P Project

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.

Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA)

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.