Collaborative Research: Surface Exchange of Climate-Active Trace Gases in a Sea Ice Environment During MOSAiC

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This project focuses on understanding the exchange of trace gases across the ice-sea-air interface during a large, collaborative field effort in the Arctic Ocean. Investigators will collect data over an entire year and with collaborators, reduce uncertainty in regional and global climate models. They will measure carbon dioxide, methane, dimethylsufide, and ozone from the bow of an icebreaking research vessel and from towers and portable instruments at field camps established on sea ice. The study is an integral part of the year-long Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) that will take place 2019-2020, bringing together an international team of scientists to understand the causes and consequences of recent and predicted changes in sea ice. The investigators plan a variety of outreach and educational efforts to spark interest and build knowledge in science educators and students about the Arctic and its climate system, and this study will provide education and training opportunities for a postdoctoral scientist and undergraduates.This study will improve understanding of processes controlling exchange of climate-active gases between sea ice and atmosphere in the Arctic. The investigators will participate in a year-long, international field campaign in the high Arctic, Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC). They will conduct continuous turbulent flux measurements using the eddy correlation method from a tower on the bow of the German icebreaker Polarstern and from a tower situated on a nearby ice camp. These will account for gas transfer over large, km-scale areas of ice and open water leads. The investigators will also collect measurements of direct gas emission and deposition over smaller areas of ice and snow and a range of surface types using portable dynamic flux chambers. In collaboration with members of the Biogeochemical Exchange Processes at Sea-Ice Interfaces working group (BEPSII), observations of direct gas transfer will inform and validate biogeochemical models of trace gas dynamics in sea ice. In addition, a physical parameterization of air/sea gas transfer will be developed as an extension of the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment gas transfer (COAREG) model, enabling regional estimates of net gas transfer in the sea ice environment. Finally, results will be used to develop and evaluate of ocean-sea ice-boundary layer exchange of climate-active trace gases in both 1-D and meso-scale (Polar Weather Research and Forecasting) atmospheric chemistry-meteorological modelling systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.