Estimating the Thickness of Sea Ice Snow Cover in the Weddell Sea from Passive Microwave Brightness Temperatures

Passive microwave satellite observations have frequently been used to observe changes in sea ice cover and concentration. Comiso et al. showed that there may also be a direct relationship between the thickness of snow cover (h(sub s)) on ice and microwave emissivity at 90 GHz. Because the in situ experiment of experiment of Comiso et al. was limited to a single station, the relationship is re-examined in this paper in a more general context and using more extensive in situ microwave observations and measurements of h from the Weddell Sea 1986 and 1989 winter cruises. Good relationships were found to exist between h(sub s) sand the emissivity at 90 GHz - 10 GHz and the emissivity at 90 GHz - 18.7 GHz when the standard deviation of h(sub s) was less than 50% of the mean and when h(sub s) was less than 0.25 m. The reliance of these relationships on h(sub s) is most likely caused by the limited penetration through the snow of radiation at 90 GHz. When the algorithm was applied to the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) satellite data from the Weddell Sea, the resulting mean h(sub s) agreed within 5% of the mean calculated from greater than 1400 in situ observations

The Wrangel Island Polynya in early summer : trends and relationships to other polynyas and the Beaufort Sea High

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 39 (2012): L05503, doi:10.1029/2011GL050691.Polynyas, regions of reduced sea ice concentration relative to their surroundings, are important features of the polar climate system in which enhanced fluxes of heat, moisture, and momentum can occur between the atmosphere and ocean. As such, they play a significant role in many atmospheric, oceanographic and biological processes. There are concerns that in a warming climate, in which there is a trend towards a reduction in sea ice cover, that the location, size and duration of many polynyas may change resulting in climatological and ecological impacts. In this paper, we identify an early summer manifestation of the Wrangel Island polynya that forms in the western Chuckchi Sea. We show that over the past 30 years there has been an increased frequency of occurrence as well as a doubling in the size of the polynya. The polynya is shown to form when there is an enhanced easterly flow over the Chukchi Sea that is associated with an anomalously intense Beaufort Sea High (BSH), a closed anti-cyclonic atmospheric circulation that forms over the Beaufort Sea. We also show that there has been a concomitant trend towards a more intense BSH over the same time period and we propose that this trend is responsible for the observed changes in the Wrangel Island polynya. Given its large and increasing size, the early summer polynya may also play an important and unaccounted role in the physical and biological oceanography of the western Chukchi Sea.GWKM was supported by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada. RSP was supported by the NOAA project NA08-OAR4320895.2012-09-1

Role of shelfbreak upwelling in the formation of a massive under-ice bloom in the Chukchi Sea

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2014. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography 105 (2014): 17-29, doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2014.03.017.In the summer of 2011, an oceanographic survey carried out by the Impacts of Climate on EcoSystems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment (ICESCAPE) program revealed the presence of a massive phytoplankton bloom under the ice near the shelfbreak in the central Chukchi Sea. For most of the month preceding the measurements there were relatively strong easterly winds, providing upwelling favorable conditions along the shelfbreak. Analysis of similar hydrographic data from summer 2002, in which there were no persistent easterly winds, found no evidence of upwelling near the shelfbreak. A two-dimensional ocean circulation model is used to show that sufficiently strong winds can result not only in upwelling of high nutrient water from offshore onto the shelf, but it can also transport the water out of the bottom boundary layer into the surface Ekman layer at the shelf edge. The extent of upwelling is determined by the degree of overlap between the surface Ekman layer and the bottom boundary layer on the outer shelf. Once in the Ekman layer, this high nutrient water is further transported to the surface through mechanical mixing driven by the surface stress. Two model tracers, a nutrient tracer and a chlorophyll tracer, reveal distributions very similar to that observed in the data. These results suggest that the biomass maximum near the shelfbreak during the massive bloom in summer 2011 resulted from an enhanced supply of nutrients upwelled from the halocline seaward of the shelf. The decade long trend in summertime surface winds suggest that easterly winds in this region are increasing in strength and that such bloom events will become more common.This study was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant OCE-0959381 (MAS), and by the Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program and the Cryosphere Science Program of the National Aeronautic and Space Administration under Award NNX10AF42G (RSP;KRA). GWKM was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. ETB was supported by the U. S. Navy

The Amundsen Sea Polynya International Research Expedition (ASPIRE)

In search of an explanation for some of the greenest waters ever seen in coastal Antarctica and their possible link to some of the fastest melting glaciers and declining summer sea ice, the Amundsen Sea Polynya International Research Expedition (ASPIRE) challenged the capabilities of the US Antarctic Program and RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer during Austral summer 2010–2011. We were well rewarded by both an extraordinary research platform and a truly remarkable oceanic setting. Here we provide further insights into the key questions that motivated our sampling approach during ASPIRE and present some preliminary findings, while highlighting the value of the Palmer for accomplishing complex, multifaceted oceanographic research in such a challenging environment

In situ electrochemical cells to study the oxygen evolution reaction by near ambient pressure x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

In this contribution, we report the development of in situ electrochemical cells based on proton exchange membranes suitable for studying interfacial structural dynamics of energy materials under operation by near ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. We will present both the first design of a batch-type two-electrode cell prototype and the improvements attained with a continuous flow three-electrode cell. Examples of both sputtered metal films and carbon-supported metal nanostructures are included demonstrating the high flexibility of the cells to study energy materials. Our immediate focus was on the study of the oxygen evolution reaction, however, the methods described herein can be broadly applied to reactions relevant in energy conversion and storage devices

Characteristics and transformation of Pacific winter water on the Chukchi Sea shelf in late spring

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124 (2019): 7153– 7177, doi: 10.1029/2019JC015261.Data from a late spring survey of the northeast Chukchi Sea are used to investigate various aspects of newly ventilated winter water (NVWW). More than 96% of the water sampled on the shelf was NVWW, the saltiest (densest) of which tended to be in the main flow pathways on the shelf. Nearly all of the hydrographic profiles on the shelf displayed a two‐layer structure, with a surface mixed layer and bottom boundary layer separated by a weak density interface (on the order of 0.02 kg/m3). Using a polynya model to drive a one‐dimensional mixing model, it was demonstrated that, on average, the profiles would become completely homogenized within 14–25 hr when subjected to the March and April heat fluxes. A subset of the profiles would become homogenized when subjected to the May heat fluxes. Since the study domain contained numerous leads within the pack ice—many of them refreezing—and since some of the measured profiles were vertically uniform in density, this suggests that NVWW is formed throughout the Chukchi shelf via convection within small openings in the ice. This is consistent with the result that the salinity signals of the NVWW along the central shelf pathway cannot be explained solely by advection from Bering Strait or via modification within large polynyas. The local convection would be expected to stir nutrients into the water column from the sediments, which explains the high nitrate concentrations observed throughout the shelf. This provides a favorable initial condition for phytoplankton growth on the Chukchi shelf.The authors are indebted to Commanding Officer John Reeves, Executive Officer Gregory Stanclik, Operations Officer Jacob Cass, and the entire crew of the USCGC Healy for their hard work and dedication in making the SUBICE cruise a success. We also acknowledge Scott Hiller for his assistance with Healy's meteorological data. We thank an anonymous reviewer for helpful input that improved the paper. Funding for A. P., R. P., C. N., and F. B. was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant PLR‐1303617. K. M. was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. K. V. acknowledges the Bergen Research Foundation under Grant BFS2016REK01. K. A. was supported by the NSF grant PLR‐1304563. The CTD and shipboard ADCP data are available from https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/HLY1401, and the nutrient data can be accessed from https://arcticdata.io/catalog/view/doi:10.18739/A2RG3Z and http://ocean.stanford.edu/subice/. The shipboard meteorological data reside at http://ocean.stanford.edu/subice/.2020-04-1

Investigation of the quasifission process by theoretical analysis of experimental data of fissionlike reaction products

The fusion excitation function is the important quantity in planning experiments for the synthesis of superheavy elements. Its values seem to be determined by the experimental study of the hindrance to complete fusion by the observation of mass, angular and energy distributions of the fissionlike fragments. There is ambiguity in establishment of the reaction mechanism leading to the observed binary fissionlike fragments. The fissionlike fragments can be produced in the quasifission, fast fission, and fusion-fission processes which have overlapping in the mass (angular, kinetic energy) distributions of fragments. The branching ratio between quasifission and complete fusion strongly depends on the characteristics of the entrance channel. In this paper we consider a wide set of reactions (with different mass asymmetry and mass symmetry parameters) with the aim to explain the role played by many quantities on the reaction mechanisms. We also present the results of study of the $^{48}$Ca+$^{249}$Bk reaction used to synthesize superheavy nuclei with Z = 117 by the determination of the evaporation residue cross sections and the effective fission barriers $$ of excited nuclei formed along the de-excitation cascade of the compound nucleus.Comment: 21 pages, 15 figures, 2 table

Antarctic pack ice algal distribution: Floe-scale spatial variability and predictability from physical parameters

©2017. Commonwealth of Australia. Antarctic pack ice serves as habitat for microalgae which contribute to Southern Ocean primary production and serve as important food source for pelagic herbivores. Ice algal biomass is highly patchy and remains severely undersampled by classical methods such as spatially restricted ice coring surveys. Here we provide an unprecedented view of ice algal biomass distribution, mapped (as chlorophyll a) in a 100 m by 100 m area of a Weddell Sea pack ice floe, using under-ice irradiance measurements taken with an instrumented remotely operated vehicle. We identified significant correlations (p < 0.001) between algal biomass and concomitant in situ surface measurements of snow depth, ice thickness, and estimated sea ice freeboard levels using a statistical model. The model's explanatory power (r2 = 0.30) indicates that these parameters alone may provide a first basis for spatial prediction of ice algal biomass, but parameterization of additional determinants is needed to inform more robust upscaling efforts

Fe-binding organic ligands in coastal and frontal regions of the western Antarctic Peninsula

Organic ligands are a key factor determining the availability of dissolved iron (DFe) in the high-nutrient low-chlorophyll (HNLC) areas of the Southern Ocean. In this study, organic speciation of Fe is investigated along a natural gradient of the western Antarctic Peninsula, from an ice-covered shelf to the open ocean. An electrochemical approach, competitive ligand exchange – adsorptive cathodic stripping voltammetry (CLE-AdCSV), was applied. Our results indicated that organic ligands in the surface water on the shelf are associated with ice-algal exudates, possibly combined with melting of sea ice. Organic ligands in the deeper shelf water are supplied via the resuspension of slope or shelf sediments. Further offshore, organic ligands are most likely related to the development of phytoplankton blooms in open ocean waters. On the shelf, total ligand concentrations ([Lt]) were between 1.2 and 6.4 nM eq. Fe. The organic ligands offshore ranged between 1.0 and 3.0 nM eq. Fe. The southern boundary of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (SB ACC) separated the organic ligands on the shelf from bloom-associated ligands offshore. Overall, organic ligand concentrations always exceeded DFe concentrations (excess ligand concentration, [L′] = 0.8–5.0 nM eq. Fe). The [L′] made up to 80 % of [Lt], suggesting that any additional Fe input can be stabilized in the dissolved form via organic complexation. The denser modified Circumpolar Deep Water (mCDW) on the shelf showed the highest complexation capacity of Fe (αFe'L; the product of [L′] and conditional binding strength of ligands, KFe'Lcond). Since Fe is also supplied by shelf sediments and glacial discharge, the high complexation capacity over the shelf can keep Fe dissolved and available for local primary productivity later in the season upon sea-ice melting.</p