Collaborative Proposal: An Interdisciplinary Monitoring Mooring in the Western Arctic Boundary Current: Climatic Forcing and Ecosystem Response

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Funds are provided to deploy a single, strategically placed mooring in the core of the western Arctic boundary current east of Barrow Canyon, which will collect measurements permitting estimation of both the alongstream and cross-stream fluxes of important physical, chemical, and biological quantities. These measurements will enhance our understanding of the western Arctic ocean-atmosphere-ice system, including crucial aspects of the ecosystem that are unattainable throughout most of the year due to ice cover. Analysis of a previously deployed high-resolution mooring array at the site has enabled the PI to determine the optimal placement and design of the mooring, and has given him insights into the vast amount of information that can be obtained from such a time-series. Using new generation moored profilers, the mooring will provide full-water column traces (from near the seafloor to the underside of the ice) of temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, turbidity, chlorophyll fluorescence, nitrate, backscatter (a proxy for zooplankton) and velocity. In addition, the mooring will provide time-series of ice thickness and ice velocity, bottom pressure, and marine mammal calls.