Collaborative Research: How to trace glacial meltwater in the ocean by shipboard hydrographic analysis of dissolved neon and krypton

这笔奖金将用于建造一种新的仪器来测量海洋中冰川的融水。将冰川融化与海冰、雪融化和雨水区分开来是一项困难但重要的任务，因为冰川融化会带来严重而严重的后果，包括长期洪水和海平面上升。冰川融化的原因和影响是一项观察和预测的挑战，因为它们在复杂而难以到达的地方展开：在数英里的冰下，在漂浮的冰架下，以及在一年中最冷的时候。该仪器的目标是将海洋学家测量和绘制海洋冰川融化地图的能力提高300-400%，同时降低成本并提供接近实时的结果。这种测量能力的增加将使人们能够比较南极和格陵兰岛被冰覆盖的陆地块的冰川融化的区域和季节变化。该仪器将在罗德岛沿海水域进行实地验证，然后将用于测量南极半岛美国帕尔默站附近的冰川融化。罗德岛大学和SRI国际之间的合作伙伴关系展示了一种重要的公私合作伙伴关系，它将鼓励将私营部门的技术用于开放获取研究，并通过雇用本科海洋工程师，支持硕士学生完成学位，以及通过展示冰川冰架及其与海洋相互作用的模型，招募环境传感技术方面的未来劳动力。该奖项旨在通过开发一种可以测量溶解在水和海水中的20Ne、22Ne和184Kr的便携式“融水质谱仪”，推进海洋冰川融化的追踪。这一进步是可能的，这要归功于气体净化技术的发展，但也要归功于测量氖质荷谱的新分析能力，我们预测这将为分析带来新的精度。氖是一种被证明难以在便携式惰性气体分析仪中分辨的分析物。它将通过消除复杂的样品存储和极地地区样品采集与随后在家中进行实验室分析之间的滞后时间，大大降低成本并扩大我们现有的样品容量。我们进一步预计，将MWMS技术整合到SRI国际水下质谱仪中将是很简单的，使未来的AUV任务能够到达难以到达的区域，如冰裂锋面和冰架空洞。作为RVIB LM Gould年度Palmer LTER水文考察的一部分，我们将利用RI State在R/V Endeavor上的船舶时间资金，在玛格丽特湾进行全面的现场试验，以测试和完善MWMS原型。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award will build a new instrument to measure meltwater from glaciers in the ocean. Distinguishing glacier melt from sea ice, snow melt, and rain is a difficult but important task because melting glaciers threaten significant and acute consequences, including chronic flooding and sea level rise. The causes and impacts of melting glaciers are a challenge to observe and predict, because they unfold in complex and hard to reach places: beneath miles of ice, under floating ice shelves, and during the coldest times of the year. The objective of this instrument is to increase oceanographer's capacity to measure and map glacier melt in the ocean by 300-400%, while reducing costs and providing near real-time results. This increase in measurement capacity will permit comparison of regional and seasonal changes in the glacier melt from the ice-covered land masses of Antarctica and Greenland. The instrument will be field validated in Rhode Island coastal waters, and then it will be used to measure glacier melt near the US Palmer Station on the Antarctic Peninsula. The partnership between the University of Rhode Island and SRI international presents an important public-private partnership that will encourage the use of private-sector technology for open access research, and recruit the future workforce in environmental sensing technology by employing undergraduate ocean engineers, supporting a Masters student in the completion of their degree, and through exhibit models of glacial ice shelves and their interactions with the ocean. This award seeks to advance tracing of glacier melt in the ocean by developing a ship-portable "meltwater mass spectrometer" that measures 20Ne, 22Ne, and 184Kr dissolved in water and seawater. This advance is possible thanks to developments in gas purification, but also thanks to a new analytical capacity to measure the mass-to-charge spectrum of neon that we predict will bring new precision to the analysis. Neon is an analyte that has proven difficult to resolve in portable noble gas analyzers. It will dramatically reduce cost and expand our existing sample capacity by eliminating complicated sample storage and the lag time between sample collection in polar regions and subsequent laboratory analysis at home. We further anticipate that it will be straightforward to incorporate the MWMS technology into the SRI International underwater mass spectrometer, enabling future AUV missions to inaccessible regions, such as calving fronts and ice shelf cavities. We will test and refine the MWMS prototype by leveraging RI State funding for ship time on the R/V Endeavor and again during a full field trial in Marguerite Bay as part of the annual Palmer LTER hydrographic expedition aboard the RVIB LM Gould.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.