Collaborative Research: Observing turbulent fluxes in the upper Arctic Ocean

提供资金用于直接进行微结构测量，以准确限制北冰洋上层的湍动热量和盐通量，并部署系泊和拖体测量设备，以加深对这些通量与当地内波和中尺度特征之间关系的动态了解。拟议中的邮轮将在两端被横跨波弗特盖尔(BG)的400公里水平路段与拖曳的身体仪表SWIFES支撑起来。这将提供史无前例的0.5公里水平分辨率快照，显示北极无冰地区的温度、盐度、速度和标量微结构。使用系留微结构剖面仪的选定位置的时间序列将提供与展开的波浪破裂事件相关的湍流混合率的详细和高频估计。最后，放置在BG中心的系泊设备将提供时间背景来解释其他测量结果。分析将集中在1)量化混合率，2)了解近惯性内波传播和破裂如何响应由中尺度涡度变化的强迫速率和折射，以及3)评估两者之间的几个候选动力学关系，着眼于参数化。该项目的广泛影响包括支持对研究生和早期职业科学家的培训。此外，拟议通过白桦水族馆的S海洋科学透视系列开展公开讲座，并随后在网络上提供视频，有可能接触到大量的非专业观众。北冰洋的观测在后勤上很困难，成本也很高。因此，在可预见的未来，我们对北冰洋及其变异性的大部分详细了解可能会通过模型来提供。我们对这些模型的输出的信心与我们通过参数化包括未解决的过程的能力成比例地增加。混合是这些过程中最重要的过程之一。该项目如果成功，将有助于对这些模式中的混合进行准确的参数化，从而改进对天气和气候、海洋分层、海洋表面热通量以及驱动海洋食物链的初级生产的预报。

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.