Collaborative Research: Taking the Pulse of the Arctic Ocean - A US Contribution to the International Synoptic Arctic Survey

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This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).The Arctic Ocean is being affected by major environmental changes, such as sea ice loss, driven by ongoing climate warming. However, since we have limited information on oceanic, biological, and chemical conditions there, it is challenging to predict future changes, to evaluate how much ecosystem change may already have occurred, or to know if these changes are occurring over the entire Arctic Ocean. International scientists are working together to develop the Synoptic Arctic Survey (SAS) program to address this challenge. SAS collaborators are sampling the physical, biological, and chemical status of the Arctic Ocean on multiple scientific expeditions. They are synthesizing these new measurements with existing data, and projecting future changes via modeling. This project is the core of a US contribution to the international SAS program, continuing US prominence in Arctic research, and focuses on the US Arctic near Alaska and in the Canadian Basin to the north. Multiple educational, training, and outreach activities are focusing on early career scientists, K-12 students, Indigenous peoples, undergraduate and graduate students, and local Alaskan coastal communities. Findings from the international effort will guide predictions and management of ecosystem resources that are essential to human communities, including local and Indigenous Arctic residents, and large-scale commercial fisheries and other economic activities.This project will quantify the current state of the physical, biological, and biogeochemical marine systems of the Canadian Basin during a multidisciplinary cruise in late summer to detect changes through comparisons with historical data, to quantify linkages between the adjacent shelves, slopes, and deep basins, and to provide a contemporary baseline against which future changes can be compared to detect responses to climate drivers. The SAS has organized around three major research areas: (1) physical drivers of importance to the ecosystem and carbon cycle, (2) the ecosystem response, and (3) the carbon cycle itself, linked with the overarching question: What is the present state and what are the major ongoing transformations of the Arctic marine system? This proposal poses specific, focused research questions under this overarching umbrella that will directly advance our basic understanding of this poorly understood region, while also providing observational and experimental data that will contribute to the broader SAS objectives. A Project Coordination Office will facilitate coordination of US project components with international research activities and will encourage and recruit additional US complementary proposals to join the project.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.