Collaborative Research: Physical Feedbacks in the Coastal Alaskan Arctic during Landfast Ice Freeze-up

北极海冰的减少增加了海岸线对海浪和风暴的暴露。秋季冰形成的时间和位置也会影响沉积物在该地区的移动。拟议的工作将探索波浪，风暴和沉积物如何在阿拉斯加北极地区的秋季相互作用。这一新的理解将导致更好地预测海岸线的冰形成，这在空间和时间上都有很大的变化。该项目将利用部署在海底的仪器和船只获得的观测结果，观察阿拉斯加北极沿海地区的冻结情况。我们将介绍在北极进行测量的新方法，这些方法既便宜又更适合恶劣环境，可以纳入未来的工作。这些观测结果将与季节性和先前的数据集进行比较，以了解冻结在不同年份的变化情况。科学家们将与当地（北极地区）和美国大陆的中学生进行交流。这项工作将侧重于开发一个沿海海洋单元，向学生传授科学知识，并指导他们建造和部署小型仪器。北极沿海陆地固定冰的快速减少正在增加波浪暴露的时间和每年到达海岸的波浪能量的强度。由于陆固冰在浅水中形成，沉积物夹带到冰中也起着关键作用，调解输出。拟议的工作将解决阿拉斯加北极大陆架秋季冻结期间物理过程的基本反馈和联系。这一新的认识将有助于更好地预测陆地固定冰形成的季节性和十年变化，这在多个空间和时间尺度上具有很高的可变性。分析还将提高我们对暴雨期间沉积物路径的理解。现场实验将使用系泊装置、自主系统和海底电缆来捕获阿拉斯加博福特大陆架地区冻结过程的空间和时间变化性。该研究将采取嵌套方法，利用季节性观测和预先存在的年际时间序列来捕获离岸强迫，当地水动力过程和海气交换的作用。测量将使用多个新的低成本遥测传感器，两栖无人机，海底电缆和北极硬化系泊系统的新型集成，为未来适应北极沿海的自主观测和监测系统建设能力。项目期间的外联工作将吸引地区高中学生以及从未体验过北极的学生。我们将继续建立在“沿海海洋学”单位在过去四年中开发的高中生在阿拉斯加北极村庄，扩大到包括中学，并结合虚拟课程与年度现场活动部署小型学生建造的仪器。此外，我们还将与三个地点的中学科学课程建立持续的合作关系，在实地考察之前进行亲自访问，在巡航期间进行直播活动，并在之后进行后续访问。该奖项反映了NSF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。

The loss of sea ice in the Arctic is increasing the exposure of the coastline to waves and storms. The timing and location of ice formation in the fall also affects how sediment moves through the region. The proposed work will explore how waves, storms, and sediment interact during fall in the Alaskan Arctic. This new understanding will result in better predictions of ice formation at the coastline, which varies significantly in space and time. The project will use observations obtained from instruments deployed on the seafloor and from ships to watch how freeze-up occurs over a section of the coastal Alaskan Arctic. We will introduce new ways of making measurements in the Arctic, that are both cheaper and better-adapted to the harsh environment, which can be incorporated into future work. These observations will be compared with seasonal and prior datasets to understand how the freeze-up may vary in different years. Scientists will engage with middle and high school students both locally (in the Arctic) and from the continental US. This work will focus on developing a coastal ocean unit, which teaches students about the science and walks them through building and deploying small instruments.The rapid decline in landfast ice in the coastal Arctic is increasing the duration of wave exposure and strength of wave energy reaching the coast each year. Because landfast ice forms in shallow water, sediment entrainment into the ice also plays a key role in mediating export. The proposed work will address fundamental feedbacks and connections of physical processes on the Alaskan Arctic shelf during fall freeze-up. This new understanding will enable better predictions of seasonal and decadal changes in landfast ice formation, which has a high amount of variability on multiple spatial and temporal scales. Analysis will also improve our understanding of the sediment pathways during the stormy fall period. The field experiment will use moorings, autonomous systems, and seafloor cables to capture the spatial and temporal variability in freeze-up processes over a region on the Alaskan Beaufort shelf. The research will take a nested approach, utilizing seasonal observations and pre-existing inter-annual time series to capture the roles of offshore forcing, local hydrodynamic processes, and air-sea exchange. Measurements will be made using novel integration of multiple new low-cost telemetered sensors, amphibious drones, seafloor cables, and Arctic-hardened moorings, building capacity for future autonomous observing and monitoring systems adapted for the coastal Arctic. Outreach efforts during the project will engage regional high school students, as well as students who have never experienced the Arctic. We will continue building on a “Coastal Oceanography” unit developed over the past four years for high schoolers in an Alaskan Arctic village, expanded to include the middle school, and incorporating virtual lessons with annual in-person activities to deploy small student-built instruments. Additionally, we will establish ongoing engagement with middle school science classes in three locations with in-person visits prior to the fieldwork, live-stream events during the cruise, and follow-up visits afterwards.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.