The Beaufort Gyre System: Flywheel of the Arctic Climate?

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This project explores the hypothesis that the state and variability of the Beaufort Gyre (BG) system (ocean, sea ice and atmosphere) are natural indicators of Arctic climate health. The major goal of this proposal is to understand the structure of the BG system, its regulating mechanisms, and impact on Arctic climate. The project team intend to accomplish this by investigating the composition and variability during the period 2003 - 2008 of the atmospheric, cryospheric and oceanic components of this system based on a specially designed observational program, improved modeling studies, and analyses of improved and reconstructed historical data sets. The project will use several major methods to explore the BG system: in situ observations, satellite remote sensing technology, methods of tracer analyses, numerical modeling, historical data mining and reconstruction procedures, and statistical analyses tools. New technologies will be applied; moored profiler instrumentation, satellite techniques allowing mapping of sea ice thickness and sea surface heights in the ice covered regions, and an easily-deployed Ice-Tethered Profiler (ITP) capable of returning daily high-vertical-resolution measurements of upper ocean temperature and salinity. This project relies extensively on working with other NSF projects, and Canadian collaborators, subcontracting with Russian scientists, and freely obtaining other products from our USA and international collaborators from Germany and UK.