Collaborative Research: Observing turbulent fluxes in the upper Arctic Ocean

提供资金，以获得直接的微观结构测量，以准确地限制在北冰洋上部的湍流热和盐通量，并部署一个组合的系泊和拖体测量设备，以发展一个动态的理解，这些通量与当地的内波和中尺度特征。建议的巡航将在两端用拖曳体仪器SWIMS跨越博福特环流（BG）的约400公里水平段进行。这将提供一个前所未有的0.5公里的水平分辨率快照的温度，盐度，速度和标量微观结构在整个无冰北极。在选定的位置与系留的微观结构剖面仪的时间序列将提供详细的和高频率的估计湍流混合率有关的展开波破碎事件。最后，位于BG中心的系泊设备将提供时间背景，以解释其他测量结果。分析将集中在1）量化混合率，2）了解近惯性内波传播和破碎如何响应于可变强迫率和中尺度涡度折射，以及3）评估两个之间的几个候选动力学关系，着眼于参数化。该项目的更广泛的影响包括支持研究生和早期职业科学家的培训。 此外，拟议通过伯奇水族馆的海洋科学观点系列举办一次公开讲座，并随后在网上提供录像，这有可能吸引大量非专业观众。 北冰洋的观测在后勤上很困难，也很昂贵。 因此，在可预见的未来，我们对北冰洋及其变化的详细了解很可能由模型提供。 我们对这些模型输出的信心与我们通过参数化包括未解决过程的能力成正比。 混合是这些过程中最重要的一个。 该项目如果成功，将有助于这些模式中混合的准确参数化，从而改善天气和气候、海洋分层、海洋表面的热通量以及驱动海洋食物链的初级生产的预测。

Funds are provided to obtain direct microstructure measurements to accurately constrain the turbulent heat and salt fluxes in the upper Arctic Ocean and to deploy a combination of moored and towed-body measurement devices to develop a dynamical understanding that relates those fluxes to local internal wave and mesoscale features. The proposed cruise will be bracketed at both ends by ¡­ 400 kilometer horizontal sections across the Beaufort Gyre (BG) with the towed body instrument, SWIMS. This will provide an unprecedented 0.5 km horizontal resolution snapshot of temperature, salinity, velocity, and scalar microstructure across the ice free Arctic. Time series at select locations with a tethered microstructure profiler will provide detailed and high frequency estimates of the turbulent mixing rate in relation to unfolding wave breaking events. Finally, a mooring placed in the center of the BG will provide temporal context to interpret other measurements. Analysis will focus on 1) quantifying mixing rates, 2) understanding how near-inertial internal wave propagation and breaking respond to variable forcing rates and refraction by mesoscale vorticity, and 3) evaluating several candidate dynamical relationships between the two with an eye towards parameterization.Broader impacts of the project include support for the training of a graduate student and for an early career scientist. Furthermore, the proposed development of a public lecture through the Birch Aquarium¡¯s Perspectives on Ocean Science series, with subsequent web-based delivery of the video has the potential to reach a large lay audience. The Arctic Ocean is logistically difficult and expensive to observe. Thus, much of our detailed understanding of the Arctic Ocean and its variability is likely to be provided by models for the foreseeable future. Our faith in the output of such models increases in proportion to our ability to include unresolved processes through parameterizations. Mixing is one of the most important of these processes. This project, if successful, will contribute to the accurate parameterization of mixing in these models, with consequent improvement of predictions of weather and climate, stratification in the ocean, the heat flux to the ocean surface, and primary production that drives the oceanic food chain.