North Pole Station: A Distributed Long-Term Environmental Observatory

该研究项目将通过安装海洋系泊装置、发射漂流浮标、重复进行海洋温度和盐度横断面等方式，在北极建立长期观测站。在这些地点进行的海洋学观测将用于研究在过去十年中经历快速变化的一个地区的海洋和大气的长期变率。目前的变暖趋势可能预示着北冰洋海冰覆盖的融化，这是全球环流模型预测的对全球变暖的反应。确定海洋温度或盐度的变率和可能的长期趋势对于了解海洋学对北冰洋气候变化的响应至关重要，并且可以提供令人信服的证据，支持在北极的其他观测结果，即全球变暖已经开始。

The research project will establish a Long-Term Observatory at the North Pole by installing an oceanographic mooring, launching a drifting buoy, and conducting repeated oceanographic transects for temperature and salinity. Oceanographic observations at the sites will be used to examine the long-term variability of the ocean and atmosphere in an area that has been undergoing rapid changes during the past decade. The current warming trend may presage a melting of the Arctic Ocean sea ice cover that has been predicted from Global Circulation Models as a response to global warming. Determination of the variability and a possible long-term trend in ocean temperature or salinity is critical to understanding the oceanographic response to climate change in the Arctic Ocean and could provide compelling evidence to support other observations in the Arctic that global warming has already begun.