Hydrography of the Canada Basin

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ABSTRACT OPP-9709130 SWIFT, JAMES UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN DIEGO This project will utilize a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker to conduct an oceanographic transect from the Alaskan coastline to a position in the Beaufort Sea (Canada Basin) where a large, multidisciplinary research program, Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic (SHEBA) Ocean, will be conducted. The goal of the transect will be to examine the origin and large-scale circulation of the water in the Canada Basin. Significant changes in the circulation and origin of waters in the Canada Basin have been observed and this project will determine the present conditions for comparison to the prior observations. The changes observed over the past several years could be a harbinger of global-scale climate changes that are driving fundamental circulation changes or, simply, the interannual fluctuation of currents that is independent of long-term climate change. This project will add an important component to the understanding of global change on circulation in the Arctic Ocean.