Collaborative Research: Explicit Modeling of the Summertime SHEBA Sea Ice Pack

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ABSTRACT OPP-9701592 OPP-9701990 STEELE, MICHAEL HOLT, BENJAMIN UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON JET PROPULSION LABORATORY OPP-9702040 HOPKINS, MARK COLD REGIONS RESEARCH AND ENVIRONMENTAL LABORATORIES This research project is a key component of a large, coordinated, multi-investigator program, Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic (SHEBA) Ocean. The research program will be conducted for 14 months from a ship frozen into the ice pack. These investigators will utilize measurements of the thermal and dynamic conditions of the permanent ice cap of the Arctic Ocean to be incorporated into a modeling project that will determine the factors responsible for the summer melting of the sea ice. Their results will help determine how atmospheric and oceanic heating is coupled to adsorption of heat by the ice. These measurements are critical to understanding how heat is reflected or absorbed by the sea ice as it melts in the summer and thickens in the winter in response to seasonal variations in climate. The modeling program makes an essential contribution to the SHEBA team of researchers who will measure atmospheric and oceanic variables with a large array of instruments on the ice floe and aircraft flying above as well as ice and ocean property measurements made on and below the ice floe. The combined set of measurements and sea ice models in SHEBA will allow refinement of climate models for the Arctic region. Those improved models will lead to better predictions of the climate and the permanence of the Arctic ice cap under a proposed global warming that could occur if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are increased above present levels.