Instrumentation for sea ice mass balance measurements in the arctic ocean

需要资金购买气象浮标，部署在海上浮冰上，以跟踪冰的运动，观察气象条件，并研究冰的热力增长和积雪。所要求的仪器对于支持北冰洋海冰质量平衡的长期实地观测至关重要。这些观测是阿尔伯塔大学刚刚启动的一项综合研究方案的关键组成部分，该方案旨在通过现场、空中、卫星遥感和建模工作，研究北极海冰的变化，特别是冰厚的变化与其他气候参数变化的关系。计划中的实地工作的主要区域将是加拿大海岸和北极之间的北冰洋多年厚冰区域。这项研究意义重大，因为北极海冰的面积覆盖率正在急剧下降，其速度远远快于任何气候模型的预测。这表明我们对北极的气候过程和反馈的理解不足。这种分歧的部分原因是这些模型对海冰质量平衡的错误描述，这主要是由于北冰洋普遍缺乏系统的冰厚观测。这项工作在世界范围内是独一无二的，将有助于对冰厚和冰动态变化进行系统观测，并有助于加拿大主要大学和政府机构今后合作建立加拿大北极海冰质量平衡观测站。

Funds are requested to purchase meteorological buoys to be deployed on sea ice floes to track ice motion, to observe meteorological conditions, and to study thermodynamic ice growth and snow accumulation. The requested instrumentation is essential to support long-term in-situ observations of the sea ice mass balance in the Arctic Ocean. These observations are the key component of a comprehensive research program just initiated at the University of Alberta to study changes of Arctic sea ice, in particular changes of ice thickness, in relation to variations of other climate parameters, by means of in-situ, airborne, satellite remote sensing and modeling work. The main area of the planned field work will be the region of thick multi-year ice of the Arctic Ocean between the coast of Canada and the North Pole. The research is significant as the areal coverage of Arctic sea ice is strongly decreasing, at a pace much faster than predicted by any climate model. This demonstrates our poor understanding of climate processes and feedbacks in the Arctic. The disagreement can partially be explained by a misrepresentation of the sea ice mass balance in those models, which is largely due to a general lack of systematic ice thickness observations in the Arctic Ocean. The initiated work is unique worldwide, and will contribute to systematic observations of changes of ice thickness and ice dynamics, and to the establishment of a future collaborative Canadian Arctic Sea Ice Mass Balance Observatory (CASIMBO) by leading Canadian universities and government agencies.