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，以准确地约束北冰洋上部的湍流热盐通量，并部署系泊和拖曳体测量装置的组合，以发展一种动态理解，将这些通量与局部内波和中尺度特征联系起来。拟议的巡航将在两端由横跨波弗特环流（BG）的400公里水平段组成，并使用拖曳体仪器SWIMS。这将提供前所未有的0.5公里水平分辨率快照，显示无冰北极地区的温度、盐度、速度和标量微观结构。使用系留微结构剖面仪在选定位置的时间序列将提供与展开破波事件相关的湍流混合率的详细和高频估计。最后，位于BG中心的系泊将为解释其他测量提供时间背景。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中尺度涡度的可变强迫率和折射，以及3)以参数化的方式评估两者之间的几种候选动力关系。该项目的更广泛影响包括支持培养一名研究生和一名早期职业科学家。此外，建议通过伯奇水族馆的海洋科学展望系列进行公开讲座，随后在网上发布视频，这可能会吸引大量的非专业观众。北冰洋的观测在后勤上很困难，而且费用昂贵。因此，在可预见的未来，我们对北冰洋及其变化的大部分详细了解很可能是由模式提供的。我们对这种模型的输出的信心随着我们通过参数化包括未解决过程的能力的增加而增加。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.