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

PI: Bonnie Light

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.

The objective of this project is to explore the effects of a changing sea ice cover and associated solar radiation distribution on the ecology and biogeochemistry of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. Specific objectives of the project include; i) characterizing the physical state of the spring – summer ice cover along a cruise track in the Chukchi and Beaufort Sea, including ice concentration, ice thickness, melt pond coverage, snow depth, and ice physical properties, (ii) determining the partitioning of spectral solar radiation between reflection to the atmosphere, absorption within the ice, and transmission to the ocean for spring and summer ice conditions, (iii) radiative transport modeling of the light field above, below, and within the ice cover, and (iv) archiving and wide dissemination of the dataset.