Abstract (non-technical)<br/>Sea level rise is a problem of global importance and it is increasingly affecting the tens of millions of Americans living along coastlines. The melting of glaciers in mountain areas worldwide in response to global warming is a major cause of sea level rise and increases in nuisance coastal flooding. However, the world's largest land-based ice sheets are situated in the Polar Regions and their response under continued warming is very difficult to predict. One reason for this uncertainty is a lack of observations of ice behavior and melt under conditions of warming, as it is a relatively new global climate state lasting only a few generations so far. Researchers will investigate ice growth on Antarctica under past warm conditions using geological archives embedded in the layers of sand and mud under the sea floor near Antarctica. By peeling back at the layers beneath the seafloor investigators can read the history book of past events affecting the ice sheet. The Antarctic continent on the South Pole, carries the largest ice mass in the world. The investigator's findings will substantially improve scientists understanding of the response of ice sheets to global warming and its effect on sea level rise.<br/><br/><br/>Abstract (technical)<br/>The melt of land based ice is raising global sea levels with at present only minor contributions from polar ice sheets. However, the future role of polar ice sheets in climate change is one of the most critical uncertainties in predictions of sea level rise around the globe. The respective roles of oceanic and atmospheric greenhouse forcing on ice sheets are poorly addressed with recent measurements of polar climatology, because of the extreme rise in greenhouse forcing the earth is experiencing at this time. Data on the evolution of the West Antarctic ice sheet is particularly sparse. To address the data gap, researchers will reconstruct the timing and spatial distribution of Antarctic ice growth through the last greenhouse to icehouse climate transition around 37 to 33 Ma. They will collect sedimentological and geochemical data on core samples from a high-latitude paleoarchive to trace the shutdown of the chemical weathering system, the onset of glacial erosion, ice rafting, and sea ice development, as East and West Antarctic ice sheets coalesced in the Weddell Sea sector. Their findings will lead to profound increases in the understanding of the role of greenhouse forcing in ice sheet development and its effect on the global climate system.<br/><br/>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.
Terra Nova Bay (western Ross Sea, Antarctica) supports dense populations of several key species in the Ross Sea food web, including copepods, crystal krill (Euphausia crystallorophias), Antarctic silverfish (Pleuragramma antarcticum), and colonies of Adélie and Emperor penguins that feed primarily on crystal krill and silverfish. Absent from our understanding of the Ross Sea food web is zooplankton and silverfish mesoscale distribution, spatial structure of age/maturity classes, and their interactions with physical drivers and each other. The quantitative linkages between primary producers and the higher trophic levels, specifically, the processes responsible for the regulation of abundance and rates of middle trophic levels dominated by copepods and crystal krill (Euphausia crystallorophias), is virtually unknown. Given that the next century will see extensive changes in the Ross Sea’s ice distributions and oceanography as a result of climate change, understanding the basic controls of zooplankton and silverfish abundance and distribution is essential.
During a January – March 2018 cruise in the western Ross Sea, we deployed a glider equipped with an echo sounder (Acoustic Zooplankton Fish Profiler) that simultaneously measured depth, temperature, conductivity, chlorophyll fluorescence, and dissolved oxygen. Additionally, net tows, mid-water trawls, and crystal krill grazing experiments were conducted. Our study provided the first glider-based acoustic assessment of simultaneous distributions of multiple trophic levels in the Ross Sea, from which predator-prey interactions and the relationships between organisms and physics drivers (sea ice, circulation features) were investigated. We illustrated high variability in ocean physics, phytoplankton biomass, and crystal krill biomass and aggregation over time and between locations within Terra Nova Bay. Biomass of krill was highest in locations characterized by deeper mixed layers and highest integrated chlorophyll concentrations. Krill aggregations were consistently located at depth well below the mixed layer and chlorophyll maximum. Experiments investigating krill grazing, in combination with krill depth distributions relative to chlorophyll biomass, illuminate high krill grazing rates could be attributed to the occupation of a unique niche whereby they are opportunistically feeding on sinking high concentrations of detritus derived from surface blooms. The information on the abundance, distribution, and interactions of key species in multiple trophic levels resulting from this project provide a conceptual background to understand how this ecosystem might respond to future conditions under climate change.
Our project tested the capability of a multi-frequency echo sounder on a glider for the first time. The production of consistent, vertically-resolved, high resolution glider-based acoustic measurements will pave the way for cost-effective, automated examination of entire food webs and ecosystems in regions all over the global ocean. A wide range of users including academic and government scientists, ecosystem-based fisheries managers, and monitoring programs including those conducted by OOI, IOOS, and NOAA will benefit from this project. This project also provided the opportunity to focus on broadening participation in research and articulating the societal benefits through education and innovative outreach programs. A data set from this project is being included in the new NSF-funded Polar CAP initiative, that will be used by a diverse and young audience to increase understanding of the polar system and the ability to reason with data. Finally, this project provided a unique field opportunity and excellent hand-on training for a post-doctoral researcher, a graduate student, and two undergraduate students.
The research seeks to further quantify the input of atmospheric Fe into the sparsely sampled Southern Ocean (SO), specifically in the vicinity of the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) and adjacent continental shelf waters in the Drake Passage. This is typically a high nutrient low chlorophyll region where surface trace metal and primary productivity data are suggestive of Fe limitation. The WAP is characterized by high productivity in the austral summer, and at this time may be in the path of northern dust (aeolian Fe) input or subject to melt influx of elevated Fe accumulated from glacial and present-day sea ice sources.<br/><br/>Primary scientific questions are: (1) to what extent does atmospheric Fe contribute to nutrient cycles and ecosystem dynamics in the SO? (2) How is warming climate occurring in the WAP affecting the aerosol composition of the maritime atmosphere. The primary productivity of the Southern Ocean is key to understanding oceanic uptake of anthropogenic greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.
Current oceanographic interest in the interaction of relatively warm water of the Southern Ocean Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) as it moves southward to the frigid waters of the Antarctic continental shelves is based on the potential importance of heat transport from the global ocean to the base of continental ice shelves. This is needed to understand the longer term mass balance of the continent, the stability of the vast Antarctic ice sheets and the rate at which sea-level will rise in a warming world. Improved observational knowledge of the mechanisms of how warming CDW moves across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is needed. Understanding this dynamical transport, believed to take place through the eddy flux of time-varying mesoscale circulation features, will improve coupled ocean-atmospheric climate models. The development of the next generation of coupled ocean-ice-climate models help us understand future changes in atmospheric heat fluxes, glacial and sea-ice balance, and changes in the Antarctic ecosystems. A recurring obstacle to our understanding is the lack of data in this distant region. In this project, a total of 10 subsurface profiling EM-APEX floats adapted to operate under sea ice were launched in 12 missions (and 2 recoveries) from 4 cruises of opportunity to the Amundsen Sea sector of the Antarctic continental margin during Austral summer. The floats were launched south of the Polar Front and measured shear, turbulence, temperature, and salinity to 2000m depth for 1-2 year missions while drifting with the CDW layer between profiles.
The Antarctic marine ecosystem is highly productive and supports a diverse range of ecologically and commercially important species. A key species in this ecosystem is Antarctic krill, which in addition to being commercially harvested, is the principle prey of a wide range of marine organisms including penguins, seals and whales. The aim of this study is to use penguins and other krill predators as sensitive indicators of past changes in the Antarctic marine food web resulting from climate variability and the historic harvesting of seals and whales by humans. Specifically this study will recover and analyze modern (<20 year old), historic (20-200 year old) and ancient (200-10,000 year old) penguin and other krill predator tissues to track their past diets and population movements relative to shifts in climate and the availability of Antarctic krill. Understanding how krill predators were affected by these factors in the past will allow us to better understand how these predators, the krill they depend on, and the Antarctic marine ecosystem as a whole will respond to current challenges such as global climate change and an expanding commercial fishery for Antarctic krill. The project will further the NSF goals of training new generations of scientists and of making scientific discoveries available to the general public. This project will support the cross-institutional training of undergraduate and graduate students in advanced analytical techniques in the fields of ecology and biogeochemistry. In addition, this project includes educational outreach aimed encouraging participation in science careers by engaging K-12 students in scientific issues related to Antarctica, penguins, marine ecology, biogeochemistry, and global climate change.<br/><br/>This research will help place recent ecological changes in the Southern Ocean into a larger historical context by examining decadal and millennial-scale shifts in the diets and population movements of Antarctic krill predators (penguins, seals, and squid) in concert with climate variability and commercial harvesting. This will be achieved by coupling advanced stable and radio isotope techniques, particularly compound-specific stable isotope analysis, with unprecedented access to modern, historical, and well-preserved paleo-archives of Antarctic predator tissues dating throughout the Holocene. This approach will allow the project to empirically test if observed shifts in Antarctic predator bulk tissue stable isotope values over the past millennia were caused by climate-driven shifts at the base of the food web in addition to, or rather than, shifts in predator diets due to a competitive release following the historic harvesting of krill eating whale and seals. In addition, this project will track the large-scale abandonment and reoccupation of penguin colonies around Antarctica in response to changes in climate and sea ice conditions over the past several millennia. These integrated field studies and laboratory analyses will provide new insights into the underlying mechanisms that influenced past shifts in the diets and population movements of charismatic krill predators such as penguins. This will allow for improved projections of the ecosystem consequences of future climate change and anthropogenic harvesting scenarios in the Antarctica that are likely to affect the availability of Antarctic krill.
During winter, sea-ice coverage along the Antarctic coast is punctuated by numerous polynyas--isolated openings of tens to hundreds of kilometer wide. These coastal polynyas are hotspots of sea ice production and the primary source regions of the bottom water in the global ocean. They also host high levels of biological activities and are the feeding grounds of Emperor penguins and marine mammals. The polynyas are a key component of the Antarctic coastal system and crucial for the survival of penguins and many other species. These features also differ dramatically from each other in timing of formation, duration, phytoplankton growth season, and overall biological productivity. Yet, the underlying reasons for differences among them are largely unknown. This project studies the fundamental biophysical processes at a variety of polynyas, examines the connection between the physical environment and the phytoplankton and penguin ecology, and investigates the mechanisms behind polynya variability. The results of this interdisciplinary study will provide a context for interpretation of field measurements in Antarctic coastal polynyas, set a baseline for future polynya studies, and examine how polynya ecosystems may respond to local and large-scale environmental changes. The project will include educational and outreach activities that convey scientific messages to a broad audience. It aims to increase public awareness of the interconnection between large-scale environmental change and Antarctic coastal systems.<br/><br/>The main objectives of this study are to form a comprehensive understanding of the temporal and spatial variability of Antarctic coastal polynyas and the physical controls of polynya ecosystems. The project takes an interdisciplinary approach and seeks to establish a modeling system centered on the Regional Ocean Modeling System. This system links the ice and ocean conditions to the plankton ecology and penguin population. Applications of the modeling system in representative polynyas, in conjunction with analysis of existing observations, will determine the biophysical influences of individual forcing factors. In particular, this study will test a set of hypothesized effects of winds, offshore water intrusion, ice-shelf melting, sea-ice formation, glacier tongues, and ocean stratification on the timing of polynya phytoplankton bloom and the overall polynya biological productivity. The project will also examine how changing polynya state affects penguin breeding success, adult survival, and population growth. The team will conduct idealized sensitivity analysis to explore implications of forcing variability, including local and large-scale environmental change, on Antarctic coastal ecosystems.
Abstract<br/>During the Early Pliocene, 4.8 to 3.4 million years ago, warmer-than-present global temperatures resulted in a retreat of the Ross Ice Shelf and West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Understanding changes in ocean dynamics during times of reduced ice volume and increased temperatures in the geologic past will improve the predictive models for these conditions. The primary goal of the proposed research is to develop a new oxygen isotope record of Pliocene oceanographic conditions near the Antarctic continent. Oxygen isotope values from the carbonate tests of benthic foraminifera have become the global standard for paleo-oceanographic studies, but foraminifera are sparse in high-latitude sediment cores. This research will instead make use of oxygen isotope measurements from diatom silica preserved in a marine sediment core from the Ross Sea. The project is the first attempt at using this method and will advance understanding of global ocean dynamics and ice sheet-ocean interactions during the Pliocene. The project will foster the professional development of two early-career scientists and serve as training for graduate and undergraduate student researchers. The PIs will use this project to introduce High School students to polar/oceanographic research, as well as stable isotope geochemistry. Collaboration with teachers via NSTA and Polar Educators International will ensure the implementation of excellent STEM learning activities and curricula for younger students. <br/><br/>Technical Description<br/>This project will produce a high-resolution oxygen isotope record from well-dated diatom rich sediments that have been cross-correlated with global benthic foraminifera oxygen isotope records. Diatom silica frustules deposited during the Early Pliocene and recovered by the ANDRILL Project (AND-1B) provide ideal material for this objective. Diatomite unites in the AND-1B core are nearly pure, with little evidence of opal formation. A diatom oxygen isotope record from this core offers the potential to constrain lingering uncertainties about Ross Sea and Southern Ocean paleoceanography and Antarctic Ice Sheet history during a time of high atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Specifically, oxygen isotope variations will be used to constrain changes in the water temperature and/or freshwater flux in the Pliocene Ross Sea. Diatom species data from the AND-1B core have been used to infer variations in the extent and duration of seasonal sea ice coverage, sea surface temperatures, and mid-water advection onto the continental shelf. However, the diatom oxygen isotope record will provide the first direct measure of water/oxygen isotope values at the Antarctic continental margin during the Pliocene.
The Weddell seal is the southern-most mammal in the world, having a circumpolar distribution around Antarctica; the McMurdo Sound population in Antarctica is one of the best-studied mammal populations on earth. However, despite this, an understanding of how populations around the continent will fare under climate change is poorly understood. A complicating matter is the potential effects of a commercial enterprise in the Antarctic: a fishery targeting toothfish, which are important prey for Weddell seals. Although the species is easily detected and counted during the breeding season, no reliable estimates of continent-wide Weddell seal numbers exist, due to the logistic difficulties of surveying vast regions of Antarctica. Large-scale estimates are needed to understand how seal populations are responding to the fishery and climate change, because these drivers of change operate at scales larger than any single population, and may affect seals differently in different regions of the continent. We will take advantage of the ease of detectability of darkly colored seals when they the on ice to develop estimates of abundance from satellite images. This project will generate baseline data on the global distribution and abundance of Weddell seals around the Antarctic and will link environmental variables to population changes to better understand how the species will fare as their sea ice habitat continues to change. These results will help disentangle the effects of climate change and fishery operations, results that are necessary for appropriate international policy regarding fishery catch limits, impacts on the environment, and the value of marine protected areas. The project will also further the NSF goals of training new generations of scientists and of making scientific discoveries available to the general public. It will engage "arm-chair" scientists of all ages through connections with several non-governmental organizations and the general public. Anyone with access to the internet, including people who are physically unable to participate in field research directly, can participate in this project while simultaneously learning about multiple aspects of polar ecology through the project's interactive website. <br/><br/>Specifically, this research project will: 1) Quantify the distribution of Weddell seals around Antarctica and 2) Determine the impact of environmental variables (such as fast ice extent, ocean productivity, bathymetry) on habitat suitability and occupancy. To do this, the project will crowd-source counting of seals on high-resolution satellite images via a commercial citizen science platform. Variation in seal around the continent will then be related to habitat variables through generalized linear models. Specific variables, such as fast ice extent will be tested to determine their influence on population variability through both space and time. The project includes a rigorous plan for ensuring quality control in the dataset including ground truth data from other, localized projects concurrently funded by the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Science Program.
Rapid changes in the extent and thickness of sea ice during the austral spring subject microorganisms within or attached to the ice to large fluctuations in temperature, salinity, light and nutrients. This project aims to identify cellular responses in sea-ice algae to increasing temperature and decreasing salinity during the spring melt along the western Antarctic Peninsula and to determine how associated changes at the cellular level can potentially affect dynamic, biologically driven processes. Understanding how sea-ice algae cope with, and are adapted to, their environment will not only help predict how polar ecosystems may change as the extent and thickness of sea ice change, but will also provide a better understanding of the widespread success of photosynthetic life on Earth. The scientific context and resulting advances from the research will be communicated to the general public through outreach activities that includes work with Science Communication Fellows and the popular Polar Science Weekend at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Washington. The project will provide student training to college students as well as provide for educational experiences for K-12 school children. <br/><br/><br/>There is currently a poor understanding of feedback relationships that exist between the rapidly changing environment in the western Antarctic Peninsula region and sea-ice algal production. The large shifts in temperature and salinity that algae experience during the spring melt affect critical cellular processes, including rates of enzyme-catalyzed reactions involved in photosynthesis and respiration, and the production of stress-protective compounds. These changes in cellular processes are poorly constrained but can be large and may have impacts on local ecosystem productivity and biogeochemical cycles. In particular, this study will focus on the thermal sensitivity of enzymes and the cycling of compatible solutes and exopolymers used for halo- and cryo-protection, and how they influence primary production and the biogeochemical cycling of carbon and nitrogen. Approaches will include field sampling during spring melt, incubation experiments of natural sea-ice communities under variable temperature and salinity conditions, and controlled manipulation of sea-ice algal species in laboratory culture. Employment of a range of techniques, from fast repetition rate fluorometry and gross and net photosynthetic measurements to metabolomics and enzyme kinetics, will tease apart the mechanistic effects of temperature and salinity on cell metabolism and primary production with the goal of quantifying how these changes will impact biogeochemical processes along the western Antarctic Peninsula.<br/><br/>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.
The one place on Earth consistently showing increases in sea ice area, duration, and concentration is the Ross Sea in Antarctica. Satellite imagery shows about half of the Ross Sea increases are associated with changes in the austral fall, when the new sea ice is forming. The most pronounced changes are also located near polynyas, which are areas of open ocean surrounded by sea ice. To understand the processes driving the sea ice increase, and to determine if the increase in sea ice area is also accompanied by a change in ice thickness, this project will conduct an oceanographic cruise to the polynyas of the Ross Sea in April and May, 2017, which is the austral fall. The team will deploy state of the art research tools including unmanned airborne systems (UASs, commonly called drones), autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), and remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs). Using these tools and others, the team will study atmospheric, oceanic, and sea ice properties and processes concurrently. A change in sea ice production will necessarily change the ocean water below, which may have significant consequences for global ocean circulation patterns, a topic of international importance. All the involved institutions will be training students, and all share the goal of expanding climate literacy in the US, emphasizing the role high latitudes play in the Earth's dynamic climate.<br/><br/>The main goal of the project is to improve estimates of sea ice production and water mass transformation in the Ross Sea. The team will fully capture the spatial and temporal changes in air-ice-ocean interactions when they are initiated in the austral fall, and then track the changes into the winter and spring using ice buoys, and airborne mapping with the newly commissioned IcePod instrument system, which is deployed on the US Antarctic Program's LC-130 fleet. The oceanographic cruise will include stations in and outside of both the Terra Nova Bay and Ross Ice Shelf polynyas. Measurements to be made include air-sea boundary layer fluxes of heat, freshwater, and trace gases, radiation, and meteorology in the air; ice formation processes, ice thickness, snow depth, mass balance, and ice drift within the sea ice zone; and temperature, salinity, and momentum in the ocean below. Following collection of the field data, the team will improve both model parameterizations of air-sea-ice interactions and remote sensing algorithms. Model parameterizations are needed to determine if sea-ice production has increased in crucial areas, and if so, why (e.g., stronger winds or fresher oceans). The remote sensing validation will facilitate change detection over wider areas and verify model predictions over time. Accordingly this project will contribute to the international Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) goal of measuring essential climate variables continuously to monitor the state of the ocean and ice cover into the future.
Marine ecosystems under large ice shelves are thought to contain sparse, low-diversity plankton and seafloor communities due the low supply of food from productive sunlight waters. Past studies have shown sub-ice shelf ecosystems to change in response to altered oceanographic processes resulting from ice-shelve retreat. However, information on community changes and ecosystem structure under ice shelves are limited because sub-ice-shelf ecosystems have either been sampled many years after ice-shelf breakout, or have been sampled through small boreholes, yielding extremely limited spatial information. The recent breakout of the A-68 iceberg from the Larsen C ice shelf in the western Weddell Sea provides an opportunity to use a ship-based study to evaluate benthic communities and water column characteristics in an area recently vacated by a large overlying ice shelf. The opportunity will allow spatial assessments at the time of transition from an under ice-shelf environment to one initially exposed to conditions more typical of a coastal Antarctic marine setting. \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThis RAPID project will help determine the state of a coastal Antarctic ecosystem newly exposed from ice-shelf cover and will aid in understanding of rates of community change during transition. The project will conduct a 10-day field program, allowing contrasts to be made of phytoplankton and seafloor megafaunal communities in areas recently exposed by ice-shelf loss to areas exposed for many decades. The project will be undertaken in a collaborative manner with the South Korean Antarctic Agency, KOPRI, by participating in a cruise in March/May 2018. Combining new information in the area of Larsen C with existing observations after the Larsen A and B ice shelf breakups further to the north, the project is expected to generate a dataset that can elucidate fundamental processes of planktonic and benthic community development in transition from food-poor to food-rich ecosystems. The project will provide field experience to two graduate students, a post-doctoral associate and an undergraduate student. Material from the project will be incorporated into graduate courses and the project will communicate daily work and unfolding events through social media and blogs while they explore this area of the world that is largely underexplored.
The Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica is changing rapidly in response to Earth's warming climate. These changes will undoubtedly influence communities of primary producers (the organisms at the base of the food chain, particularly plant-like organisms using sunlight for energy) by altering conditions that influence their growth and composition. Because primary producers such as phytoplankton play an important role in global biogeochemical cycling, it is essential to understand how they will respond to changes in their environment. The growth of phytoplankton in certain regions of the Southern Ocean is constrained by steep gradients in chemical and physical properties that vary in both space and time. Light and iron have been identified as key variables influencing phytoplankton abundance and distribution within Antarctic waters. Microscopic algae known as diatoms are dominant members of the phytoplankton and sea ice communities, accounting for significant proportions of primary production. The overall objective of this project is to identify the molecular bases for the physiological responses of polar diatoms to varying light and iron conditions. The project should provide a means of evaluating the extent these factors regulate diatom growth and influence net community productivity in Antarctic waters. Although numerous studies have investigated how polar diatoms are affected by varying light and iron, the cellular mechanisms leading to their distinct physiological responses remain unknown. We observed several growth responses, but a majority of polar diatom growth rates and photophysiology did not appear to be co-limited by iron and light limitation. Using comparative transcriptomics, we have examined the expression patterns of key genes and metabolic pathways in several ecologically important polar diatoms isolated from Antarctic waters and grown under varying iron and irradiance conditions. In addition, molecular indicators for iron and light limitation will be developed within these polar diatoms through the identification of iron- and light-responsive genes -- the expression patterns of which can be used to determine their physiological status. Upon verification in laboratory cultures, these indicators will be utilized by way of metatranscriptomic sequencing to examine iron and light limitation in natural diatom assemblages collected along environmental gradients in Western Antarctic Peninsula waters. In order to fully understand the role phytoplankton play in Southern Ocean biogeochemical cycles, dependable methods that provide a means of elucidating the physiological status of phytoplankton at any given time and location are essential.
There is compelling historical evidence that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is vulnerable to rapid retreat and collapse. Recent observations, compared to observations made 20-30 years before, indicate that both ice shelves (thick ice with ocean below) and land ice (thick ice with land below), are now melting at a much faster rate. Some numerical models suggest that significant ice retreat may begin within many of our lifetimes, starting with the abrupt collapse of Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers in the next 50 years. This may be followed by retreat of much of the WAIS and then the collapse of parts of the East Antarctic ice sheet (EAIS). This research project will assess the extent to which global ocean circulation and climate will be impacted if enormous volumes of fresh water and ice flow into the Southern Ocean. It will establish whether a rapid collapse of WAIS in the near-future poses any significant threat to the stability of modern-day climate and human society. This is a topic that has so far received little attention as most prior research has focused on the response of climate to melting the Greenland ice sheet. Yet model simulations predict that the volumes of fresh water and ice released from Antarctica in the next few centuries could be up at least ten-times larger than from Greenland. The Intellectual Merit of this project stems from its ability to establish a link between the physical Antarctic system (ice sheet dynamics, fresh water discharge and iceberg calving) and global climate. The PIs (Principal Investigators) will assess the sensitivity of ocean circulation and climate to increased ice sheet melt using a combination of ocean, iceberg, ice sheet and climate models. Results from this study will help identify areas of the ice sheet that are vulnerable to collapse and also regions of the ocean where a significant freshening will have a considerable impact on climate, and serve to guide the deployment of an observational monitoring system capable of warning us when ice and fresh water discharge start to approach levels capable of disrupting ocean circulation and global climate. This project will support and train two graduate students, and each PI will be involved with local primary and secondary schools, making presentations, mentoring science fair projects, and contributing to curriculum development. A novel, web-based, interactive, cryosphere learning tool will be developed to help make school children more aware of the importance of the Polar Regions in global climate, and this software will be introduced to science teachers at a half day workshop organized by the UMass STEM Education Institute. <br/><br/>Recent numerical simulations using a continental ice sheet/shelf model show the potential for more rapid and greater Antarctic ice sheet retreat in the next 50-300 years (under the full range of IPCC RCP (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Representative Concentration Pathways) future warming scenarios) than previously projected. Exactly how the release of enormous volumes of ice and fresh water to the Southern Ocean will impact global ocean circulation and climate has yet to be accurately assessed. This is in part because previous model simulations were too coarse to accurately resolve narrow coastal boundary currents, shelf breaks, fronts, and mesoscale eddies that are all very important for realistically simulating fresh water transport in the ocean. In this award, future projections of fresh water discharge and iceberg calving from Antarctic will be used to force a high resolution eddy-resolving ocean model (MITgcm) coupled to a new iceberg module and a fully-coupled global climate model (CCSM4). High resolution ocean/iceberg simulations will determine the role of mesoscale eddies in freshwater transport and give new insight into how fresh water is advected to far-field locations, including deep water formation sites in the North Atlantic. These simulations will provide detailed information about subsurface temperatures and changes in ocean circulation close to the ice front and grounding line. An accompanying set of fully coupled climate model simulations (NCAR CCSM4) will identify multidecadal-to-centennial changes in the climate system triggered by increased high-latitude Southern Ocean freshwater forcing. Particular attention will be given to changes in the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), wind stress, sea ice formation, and global temperatures. In doing so, this project will more accurately determine whether abrupt and potentially catastrophic changes in global climate are likely to be triggered by changes in the Antarctic system in the near-future.
This EAGER project will compare gene expression patterns in the planktonic communities under ice covers that form in coastal embayment's in the Antarctic Peninsula. Previous efforts taking advantage of unique ice conditions in November and December of 2015 allowed researchers to conduct an experiment to examine the role of sea ice cover on microbial carbon and energy transfer during the winter-spring transition. The EAGER effort will enable the researchers to conduct the "omics" analyses of the phytoplankton to determine predominant means by which energy is acquired and used in these settings. This EAGER effort will apply new expertise to fill an existing gap in ecological observations along the West Antarctic Peninsula. The principle product of the proposed work will be a novel dataset to be analyzed and by an early career researcher from an underserved community (veteran). <br/><br/>The critical baseline data contained in this dataset enable a comparison of eukaryotic and prokaryotic gene expression patterns to establish the relative importance of chemoautotrophy, heterotrophy, mixotrophy, and phototrophy during the experiments. this information and data will be made immediately available to the broader scientific community, and will enable the development of further hypotheses on ecosystem change as sea ice cover changes in the region. Very little gene expression data is currently available for the Antarctic marine environment, and no gene expression data is available during the ecologically critical winter to spring transition. Moreover, ice cover in bays is common along the West Antarctic Peninsula yet the opportunity to study cryptophyte phytoplankton physiology beneath such ice conditions in coastal embayments is rare.
The aim of study is to understand how climate-related changes in snow and ice affect predator populations in the Antarctic, using the Adélie penguin as a focal species due to its long history as a Southern Ocean 'sentinel' species and the number of long-term research programs monitoring its abundance, distribution, and breeding biology. Understanding the environmental factors that control predator population dynamics is critically important for projecting the state of populations under future climate change scenarios, and for designing better conservation strategies for the Antarctic ecosystem. For the first time, datasets from a network of observational sites for the Adélie penguin across the entire Antarctic will be combined and analyzed, with a focus on linkages among the ice environment, primary production, and the population responses of Adélie penguins. The project will also further the NSF goals of making scientific discoveries available to the general public and of training new generations of scientists. The results of this project can be used to illustrate intuitively to the general public the complex interactions between ice, ocean, pelagic food web and top predators. This project also offers an excellent platform to demonstrate the process of climate-change science - how scientists simulate climate change scenarios and interpret model results. This project supports the training of undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of polar oceanography, plankton and seabird ecology, coupled physical-biological modeling and mathematical ecology. The results will be broadly disseminated to the general oceanographic research community through scientific workshops, conferences and peer-reviewed journal articles, and to undergraduate and graduate education communities, K-12 schools and organizations, and the interested public through web-based servers using existing infrastructure at the investigators' institutions. The key question to be addressed in this project is how climate impacts the timing of periodic biological events (phenology) and how interannual variation in this periodic forcing influences the abundance of penguins in the Antarctic. The focus will be on the timing of ice algae and phytoplankton blooms because the high seasonality of sea ice and associated pulsed primary productivity are major drivers of the Antarctic food web. This study will also examine the responses of Adélie penguins to changes in sea ice dynamics and ice algae-phytoplankton phenology. Adélie penguins, like many other Antarctic seabirds, are long-lived, upper trophic-level predators that integrate the effects of sea ice on the food web at regional scales, and thus serve as a reliable biological indicator of environmental changes. The proposed approach is designed to accommodate the limits of measuring and modeling the intermediate trophic levels between phytoplankton and penguins (e.g., zooplankton and fish) at the pan-Antarctic scale, which are important but latent variables in the Southern Ocean food web. Through the use of remotely sensed and in situ data, along with state of the art statistical approaches (e.g. wavelet analysis) and numerical modeling, this highly interdisciplinary study will advance our understanding of polar ecosystems and improve the projection of future climate change scenarios.
Bubbles of ancient air trapped in ice cores permit the direct reconstruction of atmospheric composition and allow us to link greenhouse gases and global climate over the last 800,000 years. Previous field expeditions to the Allan Hills blue ice area, Antarctica, have recovered ice cores that date to one million years, the oldest ice cores yet recovered from Antarctica. These records have revealed that interglacial CO2 concentrations decreased by 800,000 years ago and that, in the warmer world 1 million years ago, CO2 and Antarctic temperature were linked as during the last 800,000 years. This project will return to the Allan Hills blue ice area to recover additional ice cores that date to 1 million years or older. The climate records developed from the drilled ice cores will provide new insights into the chemical composition of the atmosphere and Antarctic climate during times of comparable or even greater warmth than the present day. Our results will help answer questions about issues associated with anthropogenic change. These include the relationship between temperature change and the mass balance of Antarctic ice; precipitation and aridity variations associated with radiatively forced climate change; and the climate significance of sea ice extent. The project will entrain two graduate students and a postdoctoral scholar, and will conduct outreach including workshops to engage teachers in carbon science and ice cores.<br/><br/>Between about 2.8-0.9 million years ago, Earth's climate was characterized by 40,000-year cycles, driven or paced by changes in the tilt of Earth's spin axis. Much is known about the "40,000-year" world from studies of deep-sea sediments, but our understanding of climate change during this period is incomplete because we lack records of Antarctic climate and direct records of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. We propose to address these issues by building on our recent studies of ancient ice from the Main Ice Field, Allan Hills, Antarctica. During previous field seasons we recovered ice extending, discontinuously, from 0.1-1.0 million years old. Ice was dated by measuring the 40Ar/38Ar (Argon) ratio of the trapped gases. Our discovery of million year-old ice demonstrates that there is gas-record-quality ice from the 40,000-year world in the Allan Hills Main Ice Field. We have identified two different sites, each overlying bedrock at ~ 200 m depth, that are attractive targets for coring ice dating to 1 million years and older. This project aims to core the ice at these two sites, re-occupy a previous site with million year-old ice and drill it down to the bedrock, and generate 10-20 short (~10-meter) cores in areas where our previous work and terrestrial meteorite ages suggest ancient surface ice. We plan to date the ice using the 40Ar/38Ar ages of trapped Argon. We also plan to characterize the continuity of our cores by measuring the deuterium and oxygen isotope ratios in the ice, methane, ratios of Oxygen and Argon to Nitrogen in trapped gas, the Nitrogen-15 isotope (d15N) of Nitrogen, and the Oxygen-18 isotope (d18O) of Oxygen. As the ice may be stratigraphically disturbed, these measurements will provide diagnostic properties for assessing the continuity of the ice-core records. Successful retrieval of ice older than one million years will provide the opportunity for follow-up work to measure the CO2 concentration and other properties within the ice to inform on the temperature history of the Allan Hills region, dust sources and source-area aridity, moisture sources, densification conditions, global average ocean temperature, and greenhouse gas concentrations. We will analyze the data in the context of leading hypotheses of the 40,000-year world and the Mid-Pleistocene Transition to the 100,000-year world. We expect to advance understanding of climate dynamics during these periods.
The Palmer Antarctica LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) site has been in operation since 1990. The goal of all the LTER sites is to conduct policy-relevant research on ecological questions that require tens of years of data, and cover large geographical areas. For the Palmer Antarctica LTER, the questions are centered around how the marine ecosystem west of the Antarctica peninsula is responding to a climate that is changing as rapidly as any place on the Earth. For example, satellite observations over the past 35 years indicate the average duration of sea ice cover is now ~90 days (3 months!) shorter than it was. The extended period of open water has implications for many aspects of ecosystem research, with the concurrent decrease of Adèlie penguins within this region regularly cited as an exemplar of climate change impacts in Antarctica. Cutting edge technologies such as autonomous underwater (and possibly airborne) vehicles, seafloor moorings, and numerical modeling, coupled with annual oceanographic cruises, and weekly environmental sampling, enables the Palmer Antarctica LTER to expand and bridge the time and space scales needed to assess climatic impacts. This award includes for the first time study of the roles of whales as major predators in the seasonal sea ice zone ecosystem. The team will also focus on submarine canyons, special regions of enhanced biological activity, along the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP).<br/><br/>The current award's overarching research question is: How do seasonality, interannual variability, and long term trends in sea ice extent and duration influence the structure and dynamics of marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycling? Specific foci within the broad question include: 1. Long-term change and ecosystem transitions. What is the sensitivity or resilience of the ecosystem to external perturbations as a function of the ecosystem state? 2. Lateral connectivity and vertical stratification. What are the effects of lateral transports of freshwater, heat and nutrients on local ocean stratification and productivity and how do they drive changes in the ecosystem? 3. Top-down controls and shifting baselines. How is the ecosystem responding to the cessation of whaling and subsequent long-term recovery of whale stocks? 4. Foodweb structure and biogeochemical processes. How do temporal and spatial variations in foodweb structure influence carbon and nutrient cycling, export, and storage? The broader impacts of the award leverage local educational partnerships including the Sandwich, MA STEM Academy, the New England Aquarium, and the NSF funded Polar Learning and Responding (PoLAR) Climate Change Education Partnership at Columbia's Earth Institute to build new synergies between Arctic and Antarctic, marine and terrestrial scientists and students, governments and NGOs. The Palmer Antarctic LTER will also conduct appropriate cross LTER site comparisons, and serve as a leader in information management to enable knowledge-building within and beyond the Antarctic, oceanographic, and LTER communities.
The waters of the Ross Sea continental shelf are among the most productive in the Southern Ocean, and likely comprise a significant oceanic sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide. In this region, primary production can be limited by the supply of dissolved iron to surface waters during the growing season.<br/>A range of biogeochemical measurements and activities are to be carried out in the late summer-autumnal- early winter time frame in the Ross Sea in order to better understand phytoplankton dynamics, along with carbon export. These biogeochemical parameters include elements such as Fe, C and S believed to be important to Antarctic ecosystems. As well as there being interest in the functioning of the Ross Sea ecosystem leading up to the impending polar night, there is also uncertainty as to what drives the biogeochemical redistribution undergone by micronutrient Fe species during the extensive sea-ice formation at this time of year.<br/><br/>The field setting and remote conditions that accompany the proposed study present several possibilities for STEM education and training at the K-12, undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as for public outreach. At the K-12 level, the project seeks to support the development of educational outreach materials targeting elementary and middle school students,<br/>pre-service science teachers, and in-service science teachers.
The investigators will map glacial deposits and date variations in glacier variability at several ice-free regions in northern Victoria Land, Antarctica. These data will constrain the nature and timing of past ice thickness changes for major glaciers that drain into the northwestern Ross Sea. This is important because during the Last Glacial Maximum (15,000 - 18,000 years ago) these glaciers were most likely flowing together with grounded ice from both the East and West Antarctic Ice Sheets that expanded across the Ross Sea continental shelf to near the present shelf edge. Thus, the thickness of these glaciers was most likely controlled in part by the extent and thickness of the Ross Sea ice sheet and ice shelf. The data the PIs propose to collect can provide constraints on the position of the grounding line in the western Ross Sea during the Last Glacial Maximum, the time that position was reached, and ice thickness changes that occurred after that time. The primary intellectual merit of this project will be to improve understanding of a period of Antarctic ice sheet history that is relatively unconstrained at present and also potentially important in understanding past ice sheet-sea level interactions. <br/><br/>This proposal will support an early career researcher's ongoing program of undergraduate education and research that is building a socio-economically diverse student body with students from backgrounds underrepresented in the geosciences. This proposal will also bring an early career researcher into Antarctic research.
Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) formation is a key component in setting the global thermohaline (overturning) circulation. Recent studies infer a reduction of the AABW component from reduced volume of AABW entering global deep ocean basins around the Antarctic continent. It is important to obtain better estimates of AABW production rate in its source areas, and to investigate whether the global overturning circulation is slowing-down. The project will continue fieldwork with CTD/LADCP surveys including 2 yearly repeat sections, mooring recoveries and deployments. Seasonal-interannual variability of CDW intrusion, dense shelf water accumulation and export as well as overflow from the Prydz Bay shelf will also be observed. The Prydz Bay- Amery Ice Shelf region has been suggested as a key AABW production site. USAP access to this remote region of the Antarctic continent is challenging. The project will involve fieldwork to be carried out with Danish and Chinese collaboration aboard the Chinese research vessel, Xue Long. A high-resolution regional ocean-sea ice coupled model will be developed to allow time and space continuous three-dimensional ocean state estimation. Both in-situ and remote sensing observations along with the modeling simulation results will be used to investigate (i) the local atmosphere-ocean-sea ice interaction and shelf processes that produce dense shelf water and (ii) the dynamic processes that control the shelf water export.
The Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) has experienced unprecedented warming and shifts in sea ice cover over the past fifty years. How these changes impact marine microbial communities, and subsequently how these shifts in the biota may affect the carbon cycle in surface waters is unknown. This work will examine how these ecosystem-level changes affect microbial community structure and function. This research will use modern metagenomic and transcriptomic approaches to test the hypothesis that the introduction of organic matter from spring phytoplankton blooms drives turnover in microbial communities. This research will characterize patterns in bacterial and archaeal succession during the transition from the austral winter at two long-term monitoring sites: Palmer Station in the north and Rothera Station in the south. This project will also include microcosm incubations to directly assess the effects of additions of organic carbon and melted sea ice on microbial community structure and function. The results of this work will provide a broader understanding of the roles of both rare and abundant microorganisms in carbon cycling within the WAP region, and how these communities may shift in structure and function in response to climate change. Results will be widely disseminated through publications as well as through presentations at national and international meetings. The research will provide training opportunities for both graduate and undergraduate students and will enhance international collaborations with the British Antarctic Survey.
There are a number of areas of Antarctic research by scientists from the United States where rebreather technology (which unlike normal SCUBA diving releases few if any air bubbles) would be valuable tools. These include but are not limited to behavioral studies (because noise from bubbles released by standard SCUBA alters the behavior of many marine organisms), studies of communities on the underside of sea ice (because the bubbles disrupt the communities while or before they are sampled), and studies of highly stratified lake communities (because the bubbles cause mixing and because lighter line could be used to tether a diver to the surface which would probably also cause less water column disruption). The latter scientific advantage of less mixing in highly stratified (not naturally mixed) lakes is also a significant environmental advantage of rebreathers. However, for safety reasons, no US science projects will be approved for the use of rebreathers until they are tested by the US Antarctic Program (USAP). This award provides funds for the USAP Scientific Diving Officer to conduct such tests in conjunction with other diving professionals experienced in polar diving in general and specifically with rebreather technology in non-polar environments. A team of six scientific diving professionals will evaluate seven or more commercial rebreather models that are being most commonly used in non-polar scientific diving. This will be done through holes drilled or melted in sea ice at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. A limited number of test dives of the best performing models will subsequently be made in stratified lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys.
McConnell/1142166<br/><br/>This award supports a project to use unprecedented aerosol and continuous gas (methane, carbon monoxide) measurements of the deepest section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide ice core to investigate rapid climate changes in Antarctica during the ~60,000 year long Marine Isotope Stage 3 period of the late Pleistocene. These analyses, combined with others, will take advantage of the high snow accumulation of the WAIS Divide ice core to yield the highest time resolution glaciochemical and gas record of any deep Antarctic ice core for this time period. The research will expand already funded discrete gas measurements and extend currently funded continuous aerosol measurements on the WAIS Divide ice core from ~25,000 to ~60,000 years before present, spanning Heinrich events 3 to 6 and Antarctic Isotope Maximum (AIM, corresponding to the Northern Hemisphere Dansgaard-Oeschger) events 3 to 14. With other high resolution Greenland cores and lower resolution Antarctic cores, the combined record will yield new insights into worldwide climate dynamics and abrupt change. The intellectual merit of the work is that it will be used to address the science goals of the WAIS Divide project including the identification of dust and biomass burning tracers such as black carbon and carbon monoxide which reflect mid- and low-latitude climate and atmospheric circulation patterns, and fallout from these sources affects marine and terrestrial biogeochemical cycles. Similarly, sea salt and ocean productivity tracers reflect changes in sea ice extent, marine primary productivity, wind speeds above the ocean, and atmospheric circulation. Volcanic tracers address the relationship between northern, tropical, and southern climates as well as stability of the West Antarctic ice sheet and sea level change. When combined with other gas records from WAIS Divide, the records developed here will transform understanding of mid- and low-latitude drivers of Antarctic, Southern Hemisphere, and global climate rapid changes and the timing of such changes. The broader impacts of the work are that it will enhance infrastructure through expansion of continuous ice core analytical techniques, train students and support collaboration between two U.S. institutions (DRI and OSU). All data will be made available to the scientific community and the public and will include participation the WAIS Divide Outreach Program. Extensive graduate and undergraduate student involvement is planned. Student recruitment will be made from under-represented groups building on a long track record. Broad outreach will be achieved through collaborations with the global and radiative modeling communities, NESTA-related and other educational outreach efforts, and public lectures. This proposed project does not require field work in the Antarctic.
A range of chemical and microphysical pathways in polar latitudes, including spring time (tropospheric) ozone depletion, oxidative pathways for mercury, and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) production leading to changes in the cloud cover and attendant surface energy budgets, have been invoked as being dependent upon the emission of halogen gases formed in sea-ice. <br/><br/>The prospects for climate warming induced reductions in sea ice extent causing alteration of these incompletely known surface-atmospheric feedbacks and interactions requires confirmation of mechanistic details in both laboratory studies and field campaigns. One such mechanistic question is how bromine (BrO and Br) enriched snow migrates or is formed through processes in sea-ice, prior to its subsequent mobilization as an aerosol fraction into the atmosphere by strong winds. Once aloft, it may react with ozone and other atmospheric species. Dartmouth researchers will collect snow from the surface of sea ice, from freely blowing snow and in sea-ice cores from Cape Byrd, Ross Sea. A range of spectroscopic, microanalytic and and microstructural approaches will be subsequently used to determine the Br distribution gradients through sea-ice, in order to shed light on how sea-ice first forms and then releases bromine species into the polar atmospheric boundary layer.
Abstract<br/><br/>The Erebus Bay population of Weddell seals in Antarctica?s Ross Sea is the most southerly breeding population of mammal in the world, closely associated with persistent shore-fast ice, and one that has been intensively studied since 1968. The resulting long-term database, which includes data for 20,586 marked individuals, contains detailed population information that provides an excellent opportunity to study linkages between environmental conditions and demographic processes in the Antarctic. The population?s location is of special interest as the Ross Sea is one of the most productive areas of the Southern Ocean, one of the few pristine marine environments remaining on the planet, and, in contrast to the Antarctic Peninsula and Arctic, is undergoing a gradual lengthening of the sea-ice season.<br/>The work to be continued here capitalizes on (1) long-term data for individual seals and their polar environment; (2) experience collecting and analyzing data from the extensive study population; and (3) recent statistical advances in hierarchical modeling that allow for rigorous treatment of individual heterogeneity (in mark-recapture and body mass data) and inclusion of diverse covariates hypothesized to explain variation in fitness components. Covariates to be considered include traits of individuals and their mothers and environmental conditions throughout life. <br/><br/>The study will continue to (1) provide detailed data on known-age individuals to other science projects and (2) educate and mentor the next generation of ecologists through academic and professional training and research experiences.
Abstract<br/><br/>The Ross Sea is believed to contributes a huge portion (~1/3) of the primary productivity of the Southern Ocean and is home to a similar large portion of the top predators (e.g. 38% of Adelie, 28% of Emperor penguins) of the Antarctic sea ice ecosystem. The trophic pathways in this system are complex in both space and time. One scenario for the Ross Sea ecosystem is that diatoms are grazed by krill, which are in turn the preferred food of fish, penguins and other predators. Phaeocystis colonies, on the other hand lead to grazing by pteropods and other organisms that are a non-favoured food source for top predators. Remotely sensed chlorophyll, indicating all phytoplankton, is then suggested to be a relatively poor predictor of penguin foraging efforts. This is also consistent with notion that algal species composition is very important to penguin grazing pressure, mediated by krill, and perhaps resulting in selective depletion. <br/><br/>This collaborative research sets out to use an autonomous glider, equipped with a range of sensors, and informed by satellite chlorophyll imagery to be combined with 3-dimenisonal active penguin tracking to their preferred foraging sites. The effect of localized grazing pressure of krill on the appearance and disappearance of algal blooms will also be followed. Overall the objective of the research is to reconcile and explain several years of the study of the foraging habits and strategies of (top predator) penguins at the Cape Crozier site (Ross Island), with the dynamics of krill and their supporting algal food webs. The use of a glider to answer a primarily ecological questions is subject to moderate to high risk, and is potentially transformative.
1042883/Mayewski<br/><br/>This award supports a project to analyze a deep ice core which will be drilled by a New Zealand research team at Roosevelt Island. The objectives are to process the ice core at very high resolution to (a) better understand phasing sequences in Arctic/Antarctic abrupt climate change, even at the level of individual storm events; (b) determine the impact of changes in the Westerlies and the Amundsen Sea Low on past/present/future climate change; (c) determine how sea ice extent has varied in the area; (d) compare the response of West Antarctica climate to other regions during glacial/interglacial cycles; and (e) determine how climate of the Ross Sea Embayment changed during the transition from Ross Ice Sheet to Ross Ice Shelf. The intellectual merit of the RICE deep ice core project is that it is expected to provide a 30kyr long (and possibly 150kyr long) extremely high-resolution view of climate change in the Ross Sea Embayment Region and data essential to test and understand critical questions that have emerged as a consequence of the recent synthesis of Antarctic and Southern Ocean climate change presented in the Scientific Commission for Antarctic Research document: Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment (ACCE, 2009). Ice core processing and analysis will be performed jointly by University of Maine and the collaborators from New Zealand. Co-registered sampling for all chemical analyses will be accomplished by a joint laboratory effort at the IGNS NZ ice core facility using a continuous melter system developed by the University of Maine. The RICE deep ice core record will provide information necessary in unraveling the significance of multi-millennial underpinning for climate change and in the understanding of observed and projected climate change in light of current dramatic human impact on Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. The broader impacts of the project include the fact that two CCI graduate students will be funded through the project, and will be involved in all aspects of field research, core sampling, sample processing, analytical and numerical analyses, data interpretation, writing of manuscripts, and presentation of results at national and international conferences. Data and ideas developed in this project and associated work will be used in several courses taught at the University of Maine. Innovative cyberinfrastructure will be incorporated into this work and ground breaking analytical technologies, and data access/storage tools will be used.
Antarctic coastal polynas are, at the same time, sea-ice free sites and 'sea-ice factories'. They are open water surface locations where water mass transformation and densification occurs, and where atmospheric exchanges with the deep ocean circulation are established. Various models of the formation and persistence of these productive and diverse ocean ecosystems are hampered by the relative lack of in situ meteorological and physical oceanographic observations, especially during the inhospitable conditions of their formation and activity during the polar night. <br/><br/><br/>Characterization of the lower atmosphere properties, air-sea surface heat fluxes and corresponding ocean hydrographic profiles of Antarctic polynyas, especially during strong wind events, is sought for a more detailed understanding of the role of polynyas in the production of latent-heat type sea ice and the formation, through sea ice brine rejection, of dense ocean bottom waters<br/><br/>A key technological innovation in this work continues to be the use of instrumented unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), to enable the persistent and safe observation of the interaction of light and strong katabatic wind fields, and mesocale cyclones in the Terra Nova Bay (Victoria Land, Antarctica) polynya waters during late winter and early summer time frames.
The Office of Polar Programs, Antarctic Science Division, Ocean & Climate Systems Program has made this award to support a multidisciplinary effort to study the upwelling of relatively warm deep water onto the Amundsen Sea continental shelf and how it relates to atmospheric forcing and bottom bathymetry and how the warm waters interact with both glacial and sea ice. This study constitutes a contribution of a coordinated research effort in the region known as the Amundsen Sea Embayment Project or ASEP. Previous work by the PI and others has shown that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been found to be melting faster, perhaps by orders of magnitude, than ice sheets elsewhere around Antarctica, excluding those on the Peninsula. Submarine channels that incise the continental shelf are thought to provide fairly direct access of relatively warm circum polar deep water to the cavity under the floating extension of the ice shelf. Interactions with sea ice en route can modify the upwelled waters. The proposed investigations build on previous efforts by the PI and colleagues to use hydrographic measurements to put quantitative bounds on the rate of glacial ice melt by relatively warm seawater. <br/>The region can be quite difficult to access due to sea ice conditions and previous hydrographic measurements have been restricted to the austral summer time frame. In this project it was proposed to obtain the first austral spring hydrographic data via CTD casts and XBT drops (September-October 2007) as part of a separately funded cruise (PI Steve Ackley) the primary focus of which is sea-ice conditions to be studied while the RV Nathanial B Palmer (RV NBP) drifts in the ice pack. This includes opportunistic sampling for pCO2 and TCO2. A dedicated cruise in austral summer 2009 will follow this opportunity. The principal objectives of the dedicated field program are to deploy a set of moorings with which to characterize temporal variability in warm water intrusions onto the shelf and to conduct repeat hydrographic surveying and swath mapping in targeted areas, ice conditions permitting. Automatic weather stations are to be deployed in concert with the program, sea-ice observations will be undertaken from the vessel and the marine cavity beneath the Pine Island may be explored pending availability of the British autonomous underwater vehicle Autosub 3. These combined ocean-sea ice-atmosphere observations are aimed at a range of model validations. A well-defined plan for making data available as well as archiving in a timely fashion should facilitate a variety of modeling efforts and so extend the value of the spatially limited observations. <br/>Broader impacts: This project is relevant to an International Polar Year research emphasis on ice sheet dynamics focusing in particular on the seaward ocean-ice sheet interactions. Such interactions must be clarified for understanding the potential for sea level rise by melt of the West Antarctic ice Sheet. The project entails substantive international partnerships (British Antarctic Survey and Alfred Wegner Institute) and complements other Amundsen Sea Embayment Project proposals covering other elements of ice sheet dynamics. The proposal includes partial support for 2 graduate students and 2 post docs. Participants from the Antarctic Artists and Writers program are to take part in the cruise and so aid in outreach. In addition, the project is to be represented in the Lamont-Doherty annual open house.
Biogenic sulfur compounds, such as dimethyl sulfide (DMS), its precursors dimethyl sulfoniopropionate (DMSP) and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), and its atmospheric oxidation product, methane sulfonic acid (MSA), are important components of the global sulfur cycle that significantly impact global climate. The roles of DMSP and DMSO within the organisms that produce them, as well as their intracellular concentrations, are poorly understood. DMSO has been speculated to play a role in intracellular osmoregulation, cryoprotection and scavenging of reactive oxygen species, but its intracellular concentration in plankton has only been inferred. Quantitative measurement of the concentration of biogenic sulfur compounds in vivo is necessary to more completely understand their biogeochemistry. The principal investigator has developed methods for the quantitative analysis of biogenic sulfur compounds using Raman spectroscopy, which have resulted in the detection of DMSO with a sensitivity of <10 mM - far lower than the current estimates of its intracellular concentrations. The research will extend this technique to DMSP. The direct determination of the intracellular DMSP and DMSO, will allow the proposed roles of these compounds in phytoplankton to be investigated. Lastly, using field-collected cores, measurements will be made of the intracellular sulfur compounds as well as the concentration of molecular anions in the sea ice micro-environment. As an RUI project, successful completion of this work will have a substantial impact on undergraduate education in the Chemistry Department at the University of South Alabama, exposing undergraduates and, particularly, under-represented minorities in the sciences to cutting-edge research. It will provide financial support for their education and allow them to present research in journal articles and at technical meetings. Contacts with scientists in the field of Antarctic research at other institutions will give students the opportunity to interact with researchers in related fields, broadening their experience base.
The Ross Sea continental shelf is one of the most productive areas in the Southern Ocean, and may comprise a significant, but unaccounted for, oceanic CO2 sink, largely driven by phytoplankton production. The processes that control the magnitude of primary production in this region are not well understood, but data suggest that iron limitation is a factor. Field observations and model simulations indicate four potential sources of dissolved iron to surface waters of the Ross Sea: (1) circumpolar deep water intruding from the shelf edge; (2) sediments on shallow banks and nearshore areas; (3) melting sea ice around the perimeter of the polynya; and (4) glacial meltwater from the Ross Ice Shelf. The principal investigators hypothesize that hydrodynamic transport via mesoscale currents, fronts, and eddies facilitate the supply of dissolved iron from these four sources to the surface waters of the Ross Sea polynya. These hypotheses will be tested through a combination of in situ observations and numerical modeling, complemented by satellite remote sensing. In situ observations will be obtained during a month-long cruise in the austral summer. The field data will be incorporated into model simulations, which allow quantification of the relative contributions of the various hypothesized iron supply mechanisms, and assessment of their impact on primary production. The research will provide new insights and a mechanistic understanding of the complex oceanographic phenomena that regulate iron supply, primary production, and biogeochemical cycling. The research will thus form the basis for predictions about how this system may change in a warming climate. The broader impacts include training of graduate and undergraduate students, international collaboration, and partnership with several ongoing outreach programs that address scientific research in the Southern Ocean. The research also will contribute to the goals of the international research programs ICED (Integrated Climate and Ecosystem Dynamics) and GEOTRACES (Biogeochemical cycling and trace elements in the marine environment).
Time series data, from ocean moorings, on key aspects of evolving ocean properties are of considerable importance in assessing the condition of the ocean system. They are needed, for example, their understand how the oceans are warming, and how they continue to uptake greenhouse gases such as CO2. <br/><br/>The Cape Adare Long Term Mooring (CALM) program goal was to observe the bottom water export from the Ross Sea to the deep ocean. To accomplish this two instrumented moorings were set on the continental slope off Cape Adare (western Ross Sea, Antarctica), positioned to capture the export of Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW), some of the coldest and densest water found in the global ocean. Data records for the moorings spans over some four years in this very remote part of the ocean. The CALM analysis will address some specific objectives:<br/>? Characterize the temperature, salinity and current variability associated with the Ross Sea AABW export.<br/>? Examine the linkages between observed variability to regional tides, atmosphere and sea ice forcing.<br/>? Relate the Ross Sea AABW export fluctuations to the larger scale climate system dynamics, such as ENSO and SAM, and to AABW formation along other margins of Antarctica, e.g. the Weddell Sea
The proposed research targets the molecular genetics of salps, an increasingly important member of the zooplankton in Antarctic waters who's dominance appears to be related to climate warming and sea ice loss. Specifically the research will examine genome-wide patterns of gene expression, target gene expression levels, and patterns of population genetic diversity and structure underlying the complex life history and population dynamics of S. thompsoni. The P.I.s hypothesize that (1) deep analysis of the Salpa thompsoni transcriptome will reveal significant associations among selected set of differentially expressed genes and critical life history stages and events (e.g., ontogenetic maturation, sexual reproduction, senescence) of the salp; and 2) the species will show variable levels of clonal diversity and significant genetic differentiation among populations in different regions of the Southern Ocean. Broader impacts include training of two graduate students; inclusion of undergraduates in research, and in a formal training workshop; development of a summer workshop for high school teachers in collaboration with Connecticut Sea Grant; and public outreach via postings on the Census of Marine Zooplankton homepage.
The albedo, or reflection coefficient, is a measure of the diffuse reflectivity of an irradiated surface. With the sunlit atmosphere as a light source, and sea-ice as a diffuse reflecting surface, the albedo would be the fraction of incident light that is returned to the atmosphere. A perfect (white) reflecting surface would have an albedo of 1; a perfect (black) absorbing surface would have an albedo of 0. The albedo of sea-ice is needed to assess the solar energy budget of the marginal ice zone, to compute the partial solar bands in radiation budgets in general circulation and earth system models, and is also needed to interpret remote sensing imagery data products.<br/>Applications requiring albedos further into the near IR, out to 2500nm, are assumed or approximated. Modern spectral radiometers, such as will be used in this campaign on a Southern Ocean voyage from Hobart to Antarctica, can extend these measurements of albedo from 350 to 2500nm, allowing earlier estimates to be verified, or corrected. <br/><br/>Surfaces to be encountered on this research cruise are expected to include open water, grease ice, nila ice, pancake ice, young grey ice, young grey-white ice, along with first year ice. The presence of variable amounts of snow on these surfaces is also of interest. Light absorbing impurities in the snow and ice, including black carbon and organic matter (brown carbon) are different from those found in Arctic Sea ice, the Antarctic being so remote from combustion sources. This may allow better understanding of the seasonal cycles, energy budgets and their recent trends in spatial extent and thickness. The project will also broaden the educational experiences of both US and Australian students participating in the measurement campaign
The relatively pristine Antarctic continent with its extensive maritime zone represents a unique location on the planet to investigate the long distance aerial transport and deposition of marine microorganisms. The vast extent of new sea ice that forms each winter around the continent results in large numbers of frost flowers, delicate ice-crystal structures of high salt content that form on the surface of the ice and are readily dispersed by wind. The proposed research builds on earlier work in the Arctic and tests the new hypothesis that wind-borne frost flowers provide an effective mechanism for the transport of marine bacteria over long distances, one that can be uniquely sourced and tracked by the frost flower salt signature in the Antarctic realm. A highly resolved genomic snapshot of the microbial community will be acquired at each stage in the transport path, which will track decreasing fractions of the marine microbial community as it freezes into sea ice, incorporates into frost flowers, converts to aerosols, and ultimately deposits within continental snowpack. En route from sea ice to snowpack, marine bacteria will be exposed to an array of environmental stresses, including high salinity, low temperatures, UV light and potential desiccation. A parallel proteomic analysis will enable an evaluation of the microbial response to these extreme conditions and potential survival mechanisms that allow persistence or eventual colonization of deposition sites across Antarctica. <br/><br/>Current understanding of microbes in the Antarctic atmosphere is based on a limited number of microscopic and culture-based assays and a single report of low-resolution 16S RNA gene sequence analysis. The research will broadly impact understanding of atmospheric microbiology, from source to deposition, and various issues of microbial survival, colonization, endemism, and diversity under extreme conditions. In addition to venues that reach the scientific community, the research team will develop a permanent multi-media and artifact-based exhibit on Antarctic Microbial Transport that will be showcased at Seattle's Pacific Science Center (PSC), which educates nearly a million visitors annually.
Krill, Euphausia superba, is a keystone species in the Antarctic ecosystem and provides the trophic link between microscopic plankton and charismatic megafauna such as penguins and whales. Recent evidence suggests krill may not be exclusively planktonivorous, which introduces the potential of new pathways of carbon flux through krill based ecosystems. A change in our view of krill from one of being herbivores to omnivores opens up several questions.<br/><br/>Climate induced change in the extent, thickness and duration of overlying sea ice coverage is expected to change the prey fields available to krill, and to have subsequent effects on the suite of predators supported by krill. The nature of this benthic prey?krill link, which may be crucial in those parts of the seasonal cycle other than the well studied spring bloom, is yet to be determined. DNA techniques will be used to identify and quantify the prey organisms. <br/><br/>This project will measure the in situ feeding ecology and behavior of krill and, ultimately, the success of this key species. An overall goal is<br/>to investigate seasonal changes in Euphausia superba in-situ feeding and swimming behavior in the Wilhelmina Bay region of the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) area, known to be a region of changing climate. Understanding the biological impacts of climate change is important to societal and economic goals. The project scientists will additionally team with a marine and environmental reporting group to design presentations for an annual journalist meeting.
This five-year project seeks to characterize decadal scale changes in penguin and seabird populations on the Antarctic Peninsula, and to identify the factors driving these long-term changes. Two interconnected research activities are proposed: 1. Continued, long-term monitoring and censusing of penguin and seabird populations at >117 sites throughout the Antarctic Peninsula via opportunistic ship-based data collection. 2. Synthesis and quantitative analyses of datasets detailing long-term changes in five penguin and seabird species from diverse sites throughout the Antarctic Peninsula. When complete, the penguin/seabird database will incorporate data from the Antarctic Site Inventory (ASI), the CCAMLR database, the US AMLR database, the LTER database from Palmer Station, data from British and Argentine researchers, historic census data compiled by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), and, when possible, additional privately held datasets. Additional data for temperature change, sea ice coverage, the seasonal timing and intensity of human visitation, and other factors have been gathered and will be analyzed together with population trajectories within a spatially explicit framework. The research will include hierarchical statistical analyses to characterize the long-term population dynamics of several key polar species across multiple spatial scales (sites, regions, and the Peninsula). Analyses also will focus on specific subsets of the overall database to contrast visitor impacts on paired colonies, sites, and regions that share similar environmental conditions but differ in the intensity of tourism. <br/><br/>The Broader Impacts include (1) research training and first-time Antarctic experiences for a postdoctoral researcher and several graduate students, all of whom will then be better positioned to bring their expertise in spatial and/or quantitative/theoretical ecology to bear on questions in polar research; (2) assembly and analysis of a large, multi-season database of penguin and seabird time series from the Antarctic Peninsula that will be publicly available, (3) assistance in distinguishing the impacts of tourism versus climate change on seabird populations. Under the Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty, Treaty Parties are charged with regular and effective monitoring to assess the impacts of human activities. This project will uniquely assist Parties in fulfilling this mandate.
Intellectual Merit: Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) locate and capture sparsely distributed and mobile prey under shore-fast ice throughout the year, including the austral winter when ambient light levels are very low and access to breathing holes is highly limited. This is one of the most challenging environments occupied by an aquatic mammalian predator, and it presents unique opportunities to test hypotheses concerning: 1) behavioral strategies and energetic costs for foraging and 2) sensory modalities used for prey capture under sea ice. To accomplish these objectives, we will attach digital video and data recorders to the backs of free-ranging Weddell seals during the autumn, winter and early spring. These instruments simultaneously record video of prey pursuit and capture and three-dimensional movements, swimming performance, ambient light level and other environmental variables. Energetic costs for entire dives and portions of dives will be estimated from stroking effort and our published relationship between swimming performance and energetics for Weddell seals. The energetic cost of different dive types will be evaluated for strategies that maximize foraging efficiency, range (distance traveled), and duration of submergence. The proposed study will provide a more thorough understanding of the role of vision and changing light conditions in foraging behavior, sensory ecology, energetics and habitat use of Weddell seals and the distribution of encountered prey. It also will provide new insights into survival strategies that allow Weddell seals to inhabit the Antarctic coastal marine ecosystem throughout the year. <br/><br/>Broader Impacts: The proposed study will train two graduate students and a Post-doctoral Fellow. Outreach activities will include interviews, written material and photographs provided to print and electronic media, project web sites, high school email exchanges from McMurdo Station, hosting visiting artists at our field camp, and public lectures. We will provide a weekly summary of our research findings to teachers and students in elementary school programs through our websites, one of which received an educational award. Our previous projects have attracted an extraordinary amount of press coverage that effectively brings scientific research to the public. This coverage and the video images generated by our work excite the imagination and help instill an interest in science and wildlife conservation in children and adults.
Abstract <br/>This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). <br/><br/>Marine mammals of the Southern Ocean have evolved diverse life history patterns and foraging strategies to accommodate extreme fluctuations in the physical and biological environment. In light of ongoing climate change and the dramatic shifts in the extent and persistence of sea ice in the Ross Sea, it is critical to understand how Weddell seals, Leptonychotes weddellii, a key apex predator, select and utilize foraging habitats. Recent advances in satellite-linked animal-borne conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD) tags make it possible to simultaneously collect data on seal locations, their diving patterns, and the temperature and salinity profiles of the water columns they utilize. In other ecosystems, such data have revealed that marine predators selectively forage in areas where currents and fronts serve to locally concentrate prey resources, and that these conditions are required to sustain populations. Weddell seals will be studied in McMurdo Sound and at Terra Nova Bay, Ross Sea and will provide the first new data on Weddell seal winter diving behavior and habitat use in almost two decades. The relationship between an animal's diving behavior and physical habitat has enormous potential to enhance monitoring studies and to provide insight into how changes in ice conditions (due either to warming or the impact of large icebergs, such as B15) might impact individual time budgets and foraging success. The second thrust of this project is to use the profiles obtained from CTD seal tags to model the physical oceanography of this region. Current mathematical models of physical oceanographic processes in the Southern Ocean are directed at better understanding the role that it plays in global climate processes, and the linkages between physical and biological oceanographic processes. However, these efforts are limited by the scarcity of oceanographic data at high latitudes in the winter months; CTD tags deployed on animals will collect data at sufficient spatial and temporal resolution to improve data density. The project will contribute to two IPY endorsed initiatives: MEOP (Marine Mammals as Explorers of the Ocean Pole to Pole) and CAML (Census of Antarctic Marine Life). In addition, the highly visual nature of the data and analysis lends itself to public and educational display and outreach, particularly as they relate to global climate change, and we have collaborations with undergraduate and graduate training programs, the Seymour Marine Discovery Center, and the ARMADA program to foster these broader impacts.
The mechanisms enabling bacteria to be metabolically active at very low temperatures are of considerable importance to polar microbial ecology, astrobiology, climate and cryopreservation. This research program has two main objectives. The first is to investigate metabolic activities and gene expression of polar marine psychrophilic bacteria when confronted with freezing conditions at temperatures above the eutectic of seawater (<54C) to unveil cold adaptation mechanisms with relevance to wintertime sea-ice ecology. The second objective is to discern if psychrophilic processes of leucine incorporation into proteins, shown to occur to -196C, amount to metabolic activity providing for the survival of cells or are merely biochemical reactions still possible in flash-frozen samples without any effect on survival. We will examine extracellular and intracellular processes of psychrophilic activity above and below the eutectic by (i) determining the temperature range of metabolic activities such as DNA synthesis, carbon utilization, respiration and ATP generation using radioactive tracer technology, including a control at liquid helium temperature (-268.9C), (ii) analyzing gene expression in ice using whole genome and microarray analyses and iii) examining the role of exopolymeric substances (EPS) and ice micro-physics for the observed activity using an in-situ microscopy technique. Results of the proposed research can be expected to aid in the determination of cellular and genetic strategies that allow cells to maintain activity at extremely low temperatures within an icy matrix and/or to resume activity again when more growth-permissive conditions are encountered. The research is an interdisciplinary collaboration involving three different institutions with participants in Oceanography, Genomics, and Geophysical Sciences. The proposed activity will support the beginning professional career of a female researcher and will serve as the basis for several undergraduate student laboratory projects.
Despite being an essential physiological component of homeotherm life in polar regions, little is known about the energetic requirements for thermoregulation in either air or water for high- latitude seals. In a joint field and modeling study, the principal investigators will quantify these costs for the Weddell seal under both ambient air and water conditions. The field research will include innovative heat flux, digestive and locomotor cost telemetry on 40 free-ranging seals combined with assessments of animal health (morphometrics, hematology and clinical chemistry panels), quantity (ultrasound) and quality (tissue biopsy) of blubber insulation, and determination of surface skin temperature patterns (infrared thermography). Field-collected data will be combined with an established individual based computational energetics model to define cost-added thresholds in body condition for different body masses. This study will fill a major knowledge gap by providing data essential to modeling all aspects of pinniped life history, in particular for ice seals. Such parameterization of energetic cost components will be essential for the accurate modeling of responses by pinnipeds to environmental variance, including direct and indirect effects driven by climate change. The study also will provide extensive opportunities in polar field work, animal telemetry, biochemical analyses and computational modeling for up to three undergraduate students and one post-doctoral researcher. Integrated education and outreach efforts will educate the public (K-12 through adult) on the importance of quantifying energetic costs of thermoregulation for marine mammals and the need to understand responses of species to environmental variance. This effort will include a custom-built, interactive hands-on mobile exhibit, and development of content for an Ocean Today kiosk.
The climatic changes of late Precambrian time, 600-800 million years ago, included episodes of extreme glaciation, during which ice may have covered nearly the entire ocean for several million years, according to the Snowball Earth hypothesis. These episodes would hold an important place in Earth?s evolutionary history; they could have encouraged biodiversity by trapping life forms in small isolated ice-free areas, or they could have caused massive extinctions that cleared the path for new life forms to fill empty niches. What caused the Earth to become iced over, and what later caused the ice to melt? Scientific investigation of these questions will result in greater understanding of the climatic changes that the Earth can experience, and will enable better predictions of future climate. This project involves Antarctic field observations as well as laboratory studies and computer modeling.<br/><br/>The aim of this project is not to prove or disprove the Snowball Earth hypothesis but rather to quantify processes that are important for simulating snowball events in climate models. The principal goal is to identify the types of ice that would have been present on the frozen ocean, and to determine how much sunlight they would reflect back to space. Reflection of sunlight by bright surfaces of snow and ice is what would maintain the cold climate at low latitudes. The melting of the ocean required buildup of greenhouse gases, but it was probably aided by deposition of desert dust and volcanic ash darkening the snow and ice. With so much ice on the Earth?s surface, even small differences in the amount of light that the ice absorbed or reflected could cause significant changes in climate. The properties of the ice would also determine where, and in what circumstances, photosynthetic life could have survived. Some kinds of ice that are rare on the modern Earth may have been pivotal in allowing the tropical ocean to freeze. The ocean surfaces would have included some ice types that now exist only in Antarctica: bare cold sea ice with precipitated salts, and "blue ice" areas of the Transantarctic Mountains that were exposed by sublimation and have not experienced melting. Field expeditions were mounted to examine these ice types, and the data analysis is underway. A third ice type, sea ice with a salt crust, is being studied in a freezer laboratory. Modeling will show how sunlight would interact with ice containing light-absorbing dust and volcanic ash. Aside from its reflection of sunlight, ice on the Snowball ocean would have been thick enough to flow under its own weight, invading all parts of the ocean. Yet evidence for the survival of photosynthetic life indicates that some regions of liquid water were maintained at the ocean surface. One possible refuge for photosynthetic organisms is a bay at the far end of a nearly enclosed tropical sea, formed by continental rifting and surrounded by desert, such as the modern Red Sea. A model of glacier flow is being developed to determine the dimensions of the channel, connecting the sea to the ocean, necessary to prevent invasion by the flowing ice yet maintain a water supply to replenish evaporation.
Since 1990, Palmer LTER (PAL) research has been guided by the hypothesis that variability in the polar marine ecosystem is mechanistically coupled to changes in the annual advance, retreat and spatial extent of sea ice. Since that time, the hypothesis has been modified to incorporate climate migration, i.e. the displacement of a cold, dry polar climate by a warm, moist climate regime in the northern component of the PAL region, producing fundamental changes in food web structure and elemental cycling. The observed northern changes are affecting all trophic levels and elemental cycling, and the primary mechanism of change involves match-mismatch dynamics. The proposed research builds on previous findings, with a new emphasis on process studies and modeling to elucidate the mechanistic links between teleconnections, climate change, physical oceanographic forcing and ecosystem dynamics. The proposed research will examine the hypothesis that regional warming and sea ice decline associated with historical and on-going climate migration in the northern part of the study area have altered key phenological relationships, leading to changes in species distributions, increasing trophic mismatches and changes in habitat, food availability, ecosystem dynamics and biogeochemical cycling. Through targeted process studies linked to numerical model simulations, the research also will test the hypothesis that deep cross-shelf canyons characterizing the core study region are focal areas for ecosystem processes that result in predictable, elevated food resources for top-predators. The effort includes the addition of 3 new PIs: a zooplankton ecologist with expertise in biogeochemical fluxes, a phytoplankton ecologist focusing on bio-optics and autonomous observations using gliders, and a numerical simulation modeler specializing in coupled global models of ocean circulation, plankton ecology and biogeochemical cycles. The program will add trace metal sampling and analysis, moored physical oceanographic sensors, a moored sediment trap in the south, drifting sediment traps and stable carbon (del 13C) and nitrogen (del 15N) isotope analyses. Missions lasting up to 45 days using gliders deployed before, during and after summer cruises will, along with moorings and satellite remote sensing of sea ice, ocean color, sea surface temperatures and wind fields, greatly extend the observational program in space and time. <br/><br/>Since its inception, PAL has been a leader in Information Management to enable knowledge-building within and beyond the Antarctic, oceanographic and LTER communities. PAL has designed and deployed a new information infrastructure with a relational database architecture to facilitate data distribution and sharing. The Education and Outreach program capitalizes on the public's fascination with Antarctica to promote scientific literacy from kindergarten students to adult citizens concerned with climate change and environmental sustainability. Through communicating results to the public and working with scientific assessment bodies (e.g., IPCC) and Antarctic Treaty parties to protect Earth's last frontier, PAL researchers contribute to the national scientific agenda and the greater public benefit.
Several aspect of the seasonal melting and reformation cycle of Antarctic sea ice appear to be divergent from those occurring in the Arctic. This is most clearly demonstrated by the dramatic diminishing extent and thinning of the Arctic sea ice, to be contrasted to the changes in Antarctic sea-ice extent, which recently (decadaly) shows small increases. Current climate models do not resolve this discrepancy which likely results from both a lack of relevant observational sea-ice data in the Antarctic, along with inadequacies in the physical parameterization of sea-ice properties in climate models.<br/><br/>Researchers will take advantage of the cruise track of the I/B Oden during transit through the Antarctic sea-ice zones in the region of the Bellingshausen, Amundsen and Ross (BAR) seas on a cruise to McMurdo Station. Because of its remoteness and inaccessibility, the BAR region is of considerable scientific interest as being one of the last under described and perhaps unexploited marine ecosystems left on the planet .<br/><br/>A series of on station and underway observations of sea ice properties will be undertaken, thematically linked to broader questions of summer ice survival and baseline physical properties (e.g. estimates of heat and salt fluxes). In situ spatiotemporal variability of sea-ice cover extent, thickness and snow cover depths will be observed.
Antarctic polynyas are the ice free zones often persisting in continental sea ice. Characterization of the lower atmosphere properties, air-sea surface heat fluxes and corresponding ocean depth profiles of Antarctic polynyas, especially during strong wind events, is needed for a more detailed understanding of the role of polynya in the production of latent-heat type sea ice and the formation, through brine rejection, of dense ocean bottom waters. <br/><br/>Broader impacts: A key technological innovation, the use of instrumented uninhabited aircraft systems (UAS), will be employed to enable the persistent and safe observation of the interaction of light and strong katabatic wind fields with the Terra Nova Bay (Victoria Land, Antarctica) polynya waters during late winter and early summer time frames. The use of UAS observational platforms on the continent to date has to date been modest, but demonstration of their versatility and effectiveness in surveying and observing mode is a welcome development. The projects use of UAS platforms by University of Colorado and LDEO (Columbia) researchers is both high risk, and potentially transformative for the systematic data measurement tasks that many Antarctic science applications increasingly require.
This award supports a three-year study to isolate essential physical processes affecting Thwaites Glacier (TG) in the Amundsen Sea Embayment (ASE) of West Antarctica using a suite of existing numerical models in conjunction with existing and International Polar Year (IPY)-proposed data sets. Four different models will be utilized to explore the effects of embayment geometry, ice-shelf buttressing, basal-stress distribution, surface mass balance, surface climate, and inland dynamic perturbations on the present and future dynamics of TG. This particular collection of models is ideally suited for the broad nature of this investigation, as they incorporate efficient and complementary simplifications of the stress field (shallow-ice and shelf-stream), system geometry (1-d and 2-d plan-view and flowline; depth-integrated and depth-dependent), and mass-momentum energy coupling (mechanical and thermo-mechanical). The models will be constrained and validated by data sets (including regional maps of ice thickness, surface elevation, basal topography, ice surface velocity, and potential fields) and geophysical data analyses (including increasing the spatial resolution of surface elevations, improving regional estimates of geothermal flux, and characterizing the sub-glacial interface of grounded ice as well as the grounding-zone transition between grounded and floating ice). The intellectual merit of the research focuses on several of the NSF Glaciology program's emphases, including: ice dynamics, numerical modeling, and remote sensing of ice sheets. In addition, the research directly addresses the following specific NSF objectives: "investigation of the physics of fast glacier flow with emphasis on processes at glacier beds"; "investigation of ice-shelf stability"; and "identification and quantification of the feedback between ice dynamics and climate change". The broader impacts of this research effort will help answer societally relevant questions of future ice sheet stability and sea-level change. The research also will aid in the early career development of two young investigators and will contribute to the education of both graduate and undergraduate students directly involved in the research, and results will be incorporated into courses and informal presentations.
This award supports a project to investigate fabrics with ground-based radar measurements near the Ross/Amundsen Sea ice-flow divide where a deep ice core will be drilled. The alignment of crystals in ice (crystal-orientation fabric) has an important effect on ice deformation. As ice deforms, anisotropic fabrics are produced, which, in turn, influence further deformation. Measurement of ice fabric variations can help reveal the deformation history of the ice and indicate how the ice will deform in the future. Ice cores provide opportunities to determine a vertical fabric profile, but horizontal variations of fabrics remain unknown. Remote sensing with ice-penetrating radar is the only way to do that over large areas. Preliminary results show that well-established polarimetric methods can detect the degree of horizontal anisotropy of fabrics and their orientation, even when they are nearly vertical-symmetric fabrics. In conjunction with ice deformation history, our first mapping of ice fabrics will contribute to modeling ice flow near the future ice core site. The project will train a graduate student and provide research experiences for two under graduate students both in field and laboratory. The project will contribute to ongoing West Antarctic ice sheet program efforts to better understand the impact of the ice sheet on global sea level rise. This project also supports an international collaboration between US and Japanese scientists.
Edwards/0739780<br/><br/>This award supports a project to develop a 2,000-year high-temporal resolution record of biomass burning from the analysis of black carbon in the WAIS Divide bedrock ice core. Pilot data for the WAIS WD05A core demonstrates that we now have the ability to reconstruct this record with minimal impact on the amount of ice available for other projects. The intellectual merit of this project is that black carbon (BC) aerosols result solely from combustion and play a critical but poorly quantified role in global climate forcing and the carbon cycle. When incorporated into snow and ice, BC increases absorption of solar radiation making seasonal snow packs, mountain glaciers, polar ice sheets, and sea ice much more vulnerable to climate warming. BC emissions in the Southern Hemisphere are dominated by biomass burning in the tropical regions of Southern Africa, South America and South Asia. Biomass burning, which results from both climate and human activities, alters the atmospheric composition of greenhouse gases, aerosols and perturbs key biogeochemical cycles. A long-term record of biomass burning is needed to aid in the interpretation of ice core gas composition and will provide important information regarding human impacts on the environment and climate before instrumental records. The broader impacts of the project are that it represents a paradigm shift in our ability to reconstruct the history of fire from ice core records and to understand its impact on atmospheric chemistry and climate over millennial time scales. This type of data is especially needed to drive global circulation model simulations of black carbon aerosols, which have been found to be an important component of global warming and which may be perturbing the hydrologic cycle. The project will also employ undergraduate students and is committed to attracting underrepresented groups to the physical sciences. The project?s outreach component will be conducted as part of the WAIS project outreach program and will reach a wide audience.
Convincing evidence now confirms that polar regions are changing rapidly in response to human activities. Changes in sea ice extent and thickness will have profound implications for productivity, food webs and carbon fluxes at high latitudes, since sea ice biota are a significant source of biogenic matter for the ecosystem. While sea ice is often thought to be a barrier to gas exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere, it more likely functions as a source or sink for climate-active gases such as carbon dioxide and ozone-depleting organohalogens, due in part to activities of microbes embedded in the sea ice matrix. This project brings together experienced US and Swedish investigators to examine the controls by sea-ice biota on the production and degradation of key climate-active gases in the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean. We hypothesize that 1) the physical properties of the sea-ice environment will determine the community structure and activities of the sea ice biota; 2) the productivity, biomass, physiological state and species composition of ice algae will determine the production of specific classes of organic carbon, including organohalogens; 3) heterotrophic co-metabolism within the ice will break down these compounds to some extent, depending on the microbial community structure and productivity, and 4) the sea ice to atmosphere fluxes of CO2 and organohalogens will be inversely related. This project will build close scientific collaborations between US and Swedish researchers and also train young scientists, including members of underrepresented groups. Dissemination of results will include the scientific literature, and public outreach venues including interactions with a PolarTrec teacher.
This collaborative study between the Desert Research Institute, the University of California, Santa Barbara (0529087; Robin Ross), and the University of California, San Diego (0528728; Maria Vernet) will examine the relationship between sea ice extent along the Antarctic Peninsula and the life history of krill (Euphausia superba), by developing, refining, and linking diagnostic datasets and models of phytoplankton decreases in the fall, phytoplankton biomass incorporation into sea ice, sea ice growth dynamics, sea ice algal production and biomass accumulation, and larval krill energetics, condition, and survival. Krill is a key species in the food web of the Southern Ocean ecosystem, and one that is intricately involved with seasonal sea ice dynamics. Results from the Southern Ocean experiment of the Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics program (SO-Globec) field work as well as historical information on sea ice dynamics and krill recruitment suggest a shift in the paradigm that all pack ice is equally good krill habitat.<br/><br/>SO-Globec is a multidisciplinary effort focused on understanding the physical and biological factors that influence growth, reproduction, recruitment and survival of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba). The program uses a multi-trophic level approach that includes the predators and competitors of Antarctic krill, represented by other zooplankton, fish, penguins, seals, and cetaceans. It is currently in a synthesis and modeling phase. This collaborative project is concerned with the lower trophic levels, and will be integrated with other synthesis and modeling studies that deal with grazers, predators, and other higher trophic levels.
Intellectual Merit: Pleuragramma antarcticum, the Antarctic silverfish, play a key role in the trophic pyramid of the Antarctic coastal ecosystem, acting as food for larger fishes, flying and non-flying seabirds, pinnipeds, and whales. In turn, they are predators on coastal euphausiids, including both Euphausia superba and crystallorophias. Historically, Pleuragramma have been an important food source for Adélie Penguins of the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), but during the last decade Pleuragramma have disappeared from the Adélie diet. We suggest that Pleuragramma?s absence from the diets of top predators is linked to the declining sea ice canopy, which serves as a nursery for eggs and larvae during the austral spring. The research will investigate four hydrographic regimes over the WAP continental shelf with the following features: (1) persistent gyral flows that act to retain locally spawned larvae, (2) spring sea ice that has declined in recent years (3) the prevalence of adult silverfish, and (4) the presence of breeding Adélie penguins whose diets vary in the proportions of silverfish consumed. The research will evaluate the importance of local reproduction versus larval advection, and the extent to which populations in the subregions of study are genetically distinct, via analysis of population structure, otolith microchemistry and molecular genetics of fish. The Pleuragramma data will be compared with penguin diet samples taken synoptically. <br/><br/>Broader Impacts: The proposed research brings together an international group of scientists with highly complimentary suites of skills to address the fate of Pleuragramma on the WAP shelf. Graduate students will use the data acquired as part of their Ph.D research, and will receive cross-training in ornithological field techniques, molecular genetic methods and otolith isotope chemistry. The PIs will work actively with the St. Petersburg Times to produce a blog in real time with pictures and text, which will be used to interact with local schools while we are at sea and after our return. The investigators also will collaborate with the COSEE center at USF and at local schools and museums to disseminate results to the K-12 community throughout the region.
Atmospheric warming has been associated with retreating glaciers, disintegrating ice shelves, and the increasing prevalence of icebergs in the Southern Ocean over the last decade. Our preliminary study of two icebergs in the NW Weddell Sea, an area of high iceberg concentration, showed significant delivery of terrestrial material accompanied by significant enhancement of phytoplankton and zooplankton/micronekton abundance, and primary production surrounding the icebergs. We hypothesize that nutrient enrichment by free-drifting icebergs will increase primary production and sedimentation of organic carbon, thus increasing the draw-down and sequestration of CO2 in the Southern Ocean and impacting the global carbon cycle. Our research addresses the following questions:1) What is the relationship between the physical dynamics of free-drifting icebergs and the Fe and nutrient distributions of the surrounding water column? 2) What is the relationship between Fe and nutrient distributions associated with free-drifting icebergs and the organic carbon dynamics of the ice-attached and surrounding pelagic communities (microbes, zooplankton, micronekton)? 3) What is impact on the export flux of particulate organic carbon from the mixed layer? An interdisciplinary approach is proposed to examine iceberg structure and dynamics, biogeochemical processes, and carbon cycling that includes measurement of trace element, nutrient and radionuclide distributions; organic carbon dynamics mediated by microbial, ice-attached and zooplankton communities; and particulate organic carbon export fluxes. Results from this project will further our understanding of the relationship between climate change and carbon sequestration in the Southern Ocean. Our findings will be incorporated into the Antarctic Research division of the Ocean Exploration Center (OEC) as part of the SIOExplorer: Digital Library Project. The OEC allows users to access content, which is classified to one of four levels: entry (grade K-6), student (grade 6-12), college, and research. Graduate students, undergraduates, teachers, and volunteers are important participants in the proposed field and laboratory work. For the K-12 level, a professional writer of children's books will participate in cruises to produce an account of the expedition and a daily interactive website.
During previous NSF-sponsored research, the PI's discovered that southern elephant seal colonies once existed along the Victoria Land coast (VLC) of Antarctica, a region where they are no longer observed. Molted seal skin and hair occur along 300 km of coastline, more than 1000 km from any extant colony. The last record of a seal at a former colony site is at ~A.D. 1600. Because abandonment occurred prior to subantarctic sealing, disappearance of the VLC colony probably was due to environmental factors, possibly cooling and encroachment of land-fast, perennial sea ice that made access to haul-out sites difficult. The record of seal inhabitation along the VLC, therefore, has potential as a proxy for climate change. Elephant seals are a predominantly subantarctic species with circumpolar distribution. Genetic studies have revealed significant differentiation among populations, particularly with regard to that at Macquarie I., which is the extant population nearest to the abandoned VLC colony. Not only is the Macquarie population unique genetically, but it is has undergone unexplained decline of 2%/yr over the last 50 years3. In a pilot study, genetic analyses showed a close relationship between the VLC seals and those at Macquarie I. An understanding of the relationship between the two populations, as well as of the environmental pressures that led to the demise of the VLC colonies, will provide a better understanding of present-day population genetic structure, the effect of environmental change on seal populations, and possibly the reasons underlying the modern decline at Macquarie Island.<br/>This project addresses several key research problems: (1) Why did elephant seals colonize and then abandon the VLC? (2) What does the elephant seal record reveal about Holocene climate change and sea-ice conditions? (3) What were the foraging strategies of the seals and did these strategies change over time as climate varied? (4) How does the genetic structure of the VLC seals relate to extant populations? (5) How did genetic diversity change over time and with colony decline? (6) Using ancient samples to estimate mtDNA mutation rates, what can be learned about VLC population dynamics over time? (7) What was the ecological relationship between elephant seals and Adelie penguins that occupied the same sites, but apparently at different times? The proposed work includes the professional training of young researchers and incorporation of data into graduate and undergraduate courses.
The proposed work is part of an integrated research program into the oceanographic structure of the western Weddell Sea. It is to be carried out from an ice camp jointly occupied by U.S. and USSR scientists from February to June 1992. This project concerns the determination of the energy exchange between the sea ice cover and the atmospheric boundary layer. The objectives are to measure time series of the individual components of the sea ice/atmosphere energy budget for the duration of the drift, and to determine the bulk transfer coefficients for the exchange of momentum and sensible and latent heat. The purpose of the measurements is to expand our capability for numerical and analytical modelling of the antarctic environment. Turbulent fluctuations in the temperature, wind, and humidity fields will be measured directly with small, fast-responding sensors. These observations will be complemented by other synoptic meteorological data and with upper air soundings.
The primary objective of this research is to investigate polar marine psychrophilic bacteria for their potential to nucleate ice using a combination of microbiological, molecular biological and atmospheric science approaches in the laboratory. Very little is known about how psychrophiles interact and cope with ice or their adaptations to conditions of extreme cold and salinity. This work will involve a series of laboratory experiments using a novel freeze-tube technique for assaying freezing spectra which will provide quantitative information on: (i) the temperature-dependent freezing rates for heterogeneously frozen droplets containing sea-ice bacteria, (ii) the proportional occurrence of ice-nucleation activity versus anti-freeze activity among sea-ice bacterial isolates and (iii) the temperature-dependent freezing rates of bacteria with ice-nucleation activity grown at a range of temperatures and salinities. The compound(s) responsible for the observed activity will be identified, which is an essential step towards the development of an in-situ bacterial ice-nucleation detection assay that can be applied in the field to Antarctic water and cloud samples.<br/> One of the goals of this work is to better understand survival and cold adaptation processes of polar marine bacteria confronted with freezing conditions in sea ice. Since sea ice strongly impacts polar, as well as the global climates, this research is of significant interest because it will also provide data for accessing the importance of bacterial ice nucleation in the formation of sea ice. These measurements of ice-nucleation rates will be the first high-resolution measurements for psychrophilic marine bacteria. Another goal is to better understand the impact of bacterial ice initiation processes in polar clouds by making high-resolution measurements of nucleation rates for cloud bacteria found over Arctic and Antarctic regions. Initial measurements indicate these bacteria nucleate ice at warmer temperatures and the effect in polar regions may be quite important, since ice can strongly impact cloud dynamics, cloud radiative properties, precipitation formation, and cloud chemistry. If these initial measurements are confirmed, the data collected here will be important for improving the understanding of polar cloud processes and models. A third goal is to better understand the molecular basis of marine bacterial ice nucleation by characterizing the ice-nucleation compound and comparing it with those of known plant-derived ice-nucleating bacteria, which are the only ice-nucleating bacteria examined in detail to date. The proposed activity will support the beginning academic career of a post-doctoral researcher and will serve as the basis for several undergraduate student laboratory projects. Results from this research will be widely published in various scientific journals and outreach venues.
This award supports an investigation of spatial variations of ice temperature and subglacial conditions using available ice-penetrating radar data around a future deep ice coring site near the Ross and Amundsen flow divide of West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Besides geometry of reflection layers the focus will be on intensities of radar echoes from within ice deeper than several hundred meters and will also examine echoes from the bed. Preliminary studies on theory and comparison with Japanese radar data from East Antarctica suggest that large spatial variations of the vertical gradient of radar echoes from within ice exist and are caused primarily by ice temperature and secondarily by crystal-orientation fabric. The hypothesis that the vertical gradient is a proxy of ice temperature will be tested. The project will utilize an existing data set from the Support Office for Aerogeophysical Research in Antarctica (SOAR) and will complement work already underway at University of Texas to analyze the radar data. The project will provide undergraduate research experience with an emphasis on computer analysis of time series and large data sets as well as development of web-based resource of results and methods and will support an international collaboration between US and Japan through discussions on the preliminary results from their study sites. Practical procedures developed through this study will be downloadable from the project's web site in the third year and will allow investigation of other ice sheets using existing radar data sets. This project will contribute to the interpretation of the future inland West Antarctic ice core and will help in the understanding of ice sheet history and climate change.
The krill surplus hypothesis argues that the near-extirpation of baleen whales from Antarctic waters during much the twentieth century led to significant changes in the availability of krill for other predators. Over the past decade, however, overall krill abundance has decreased by over an order of magnitude around the Antarctic Peninsula, in part due to physical forces, including the duration and extent of winter sea ice cover. Krill predators are vulnerable to variability in prey and have been shown to alter their demography in response to changes in prey availability This research will use novel tagging technology combined with traditional fisheries acoustics methods to quantify the prey consumed by a poorly understood yet ecologically integral and recovering krill predator in the Antarctic, the humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae). It also will use a combination of advanced non-invasive tag technology to study whale behavior concurrent with hydro-acoustic techniques to map krill aggregations. The project will (1) provide direct and quantitative estimates of krill consumption rates by humpback whales and incorporate these into models for the management of krill stocks and the conservation of the Antarctic marine ecosystem; (2) provide information integral to understanding predator-prey ecology and trophic dynamics, i.e., if/how baleen whales affect the distribution and behavior of krill and/or other krill predators; (3) add significantly to the knowledge of the diving behavior and foraging ecology of baleen whales in the Antarctic; and (4) develop new geospatial tools for the construction of multi-trophic level models that account for physical as well as biological data. <br/><br/>Broader Impacts: Whales are assumed to be a major predator on Antarctic krill, yet there is little understanding of how whales utilize this resource. This knowledge is critical to addressing both bottom-up and top-down questions, e.g., how climate change may affect whales or how whales may affect falling krill abundances. This program will integrate research and education by providing opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdoctoral researchers at Duke University, the Florida State University and the University of Massachusetts at Boston. This project will also seek to integrate interactive learning through real time, seasonal and curriculum development in collaboration with the National Geographic Society as well as at the participating universities and local schools in those communities.
Domack: OPP 9615053 Manley: OPP 9615670 Banerjee: OPP 9615695 Dunbar: OPP 9615668 Ishman: OPP 9615669 Leventer: OPP 9714371 Abstract This award supports a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional effort to elucidate the detailed climate history of the Antarctic Peninsula during the Holocene epoch (the last 10,000 years). The Holocene is an important, but often overlooked, portion of the Antarctic paleoclimatic record because natural variability in Holocene climate on time scales of decades to millennia can be evaluated as a model for our present "interglacial" world. This project builds on over ten years of prior investigation into the depositional processes, productivity patterns and climate regime of the Antarctic Peninsula. This previous work identified key locations that contain ultra-high resolution records of past climatic variation. These data indicate that solar cycles operating on multi-century and millennial time scales are important regulators of meltwater production and paleoproductivity. These marine records can be correlated with ice core records in Greenland and Antarctica. This project will focus on sediment dispersal patterns across the Palmer Deep region. The objective is to understand the present links between the modern climatic and oceanographic systems and sediment distribution. In particular, additional information is needed regarding the influence of sea ice on the distribution of both biogenic and terrigenous sediment distribution. Sediment samples will be collected with a variety of grab sampling and coring devices. Analytical work will include carbon-14 dating of surface sediments using accellerator mass spectrometry and standard sedimentologic, micropaleontologic and magnetic granulometric analyses. This multiparameter approach is the most effective way to extract the paleoclimatic signals contained in the marine sediment cores. Two additional objectives are the deployment of sediment traps in front of the Muller Ice Shelf in Lallemand Fjord and seismic reflection work in conjunction with site augmentation funded through the Joint Oceanographic Institute. The goal of sediment trap work is to address whether sand transport and deposition adjacent to the ice shelf calving line results from meltwater or aeolian processes. In addition, the relationship between sea ice conditions and primary productivity will be investigated. The collection of a short series of seismic lines across the Palmer Deep basins will fully resolve the question of depth to acoustic basement. The combination of investigators on this project, all with many years of experience working in high latitude settings, provides an effective team to complete the project in a timely fashion. A combination of undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students will be involved in all stages of the project so that educational objectives will be met in-tandem with research goals of the project.
The U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (U.S. GLOBEC) program has the goal of understanding and ultimately predicting how populations of marine animal species respond to natural and anthropogenic changes in climate. Research in the Southern Ocean (SO) indicates strong coupling between climatic processes and ecosystem dynamics via the annual formation and destruction of sea ice. The Southern Ocean GLOBEC Program (SO GLOBEC) will investigate the dynamic relationship between physical processes and ecosystem responses through identification of critical parameters that affect the distribution, abundance and population dynamics of target species. The overall goals of the SO GLOBEC program are to elucidate shelf circulation processes and their effect on sea ice formation and krill distribution, and to examine the factors which govern krill survivorship and availability to higher trophic levels, including penguins, seals and whales. The focus of the U.S. contribution to the international SO GLOBEC program will be on winter processes. This component will focus on the distribution and foraging behavior of adult female crabeater seals, using a combination of satellite-linked tracking, specialized diver recorders, and stable isotopic tracers. This research will be coordinated with components focused on prey (krill) distribution and the physical environment. The results will be analyzed using an optimality model. The result of the integrated SO GLOBEC program will be to improve the predictability of living marine resources, especially with respect to local and global climatic shifts.
This project is a contribution to a coordinated attempt to understand the interactions of biological and physical dynamics by developing mechanistic links between the evolution of the antarctic winter ice and snow cover, and biological habitat variability, through modeling the optical properties of the environment. The work will be carried out in the context of the Southern Ocean Experiment of the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics Study (Globec), a large, multi-investigator study of the winter survival strategy of krill under the antarctic sea ice.<br/><br/>The optical properties of snow and sea ice evolve through the winter and vary greatly both spectrally and spatially. These properties are an important element of the physical environment that strongly influences both the distribution of and the resources available to antarctic krill. The intensity of incident radiant energy and its distribution within the snow, ice, and water column environment, and the linked physical, optical, chemical, and biological processes that modulate its distribution are generally known but poorly quantified. The optical properties of snow and ice also influence snow algae, ice algae, and water column productivity, as well as visibility for both predator and prey. Furthermore, optical properties play an essential role in satellite observations as proxy indicators of geophysical sea ice parameters which permit local observations to be more accurately extrapolated in space and time, thus providing regional coverage that would otherwise not be possible. What is proposed is the deployment of an array of instrumented ice beacons, augmented by periodic ship-based and satellite observations, along with theoretical studies to create improved quantitative models with which to follow the temporal and spatial evolution of this snow and ice marine ecosystem.<br/><br/>The specific objective is to develop a thermodynamic sea ice/ecosystem model through coupling of existing components in order to test our understanding of the system, determine its sensitivities, and to provide an organizing mechanism for integrating the Southern Ocean Globec observations. <br/>***
The U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (U.S. GLOBEC) program has the goal of understanding and ultimately predicting how populations of marine animal species respond to natural and anthropogenic changes in climate. Research in the Southern Ocean (SO) indicates strong coupling between climatic processes and ecosystem dynamics via the annual formation and destruction of sea ice. The Southern Ocean GLOBEC Program (SO GLOBEC) will investigate the dynamic relationship between physical processes and ecosystem responses through identification of critical parameters that affect the distribution, abundance and population dynamics of target species. The overall goals of the SO GLOBEC program are to elucidate shelf circulation processes and their effect on sea ice formation and krill distribution, and to examine the factors which govern krill survivorship and availability to higher trophic levels, including penguins, seals and whales. The focus of the U.S. contribution to the international SO GLOBEC program will be on winter processes. This component will apply new biochemical approaches to determine the population age structure of krill in field populations over seasonal and interannual time scales. Lipids specific to different food resources will be used in parallel with the intent of establishing markers for dietary history. This research will be coordinated with components studying krill feeding and growth. The result of the integrated SO GLOBEC program will be to improve the predictability of living marine resources, especially with respect to local and global climatic shifts.
Seabird research conducted at Admiralty Bay, King George Island in the Antarctic Peninsula region has documented annual variability in the life history parameters of the population biology of three related penguin species: the Adelie, the gentoo and the chinstrap (Pygoscelis adeliae, P. papua and P. antarctica, respectively). This long-term study has collected twenty-five years of data on the three related species, including survival and recruitment, population size and breeding success, and diets and foraging ecology. The current project will extend the research linking penguin demography and foraging ecology to variability in the Antarctic marine ecosystem. A major focus of this work will be on the Adelie and gentoo penguin population biology data and the distribution and trophic interactions among the three Pygoscelis species during the breeding season and the non-breeding, winter period. Recent results have provided the first detailed data on the wintering distributions of Adelie and chinstrap penguins in the Antarctic Peninsula region, through the use of satellite tags and time-depth recorders to examine the post-fledging foraging. Specific topics of research include an examination of the size and sex composition of krill captured by penguins feeding chicks and krill collected concurrently by net hauls in the adjacent marine environment and the length-frequency distribution of krill collected from penguin diet samples. The over winter survival of penguin breeding adults and the recruitment of young (two to four year old) pre-breeding penguins to their natal colony will be compared to the extent of sea ice in the winter prior to the breeding season. These variables are expected to be positively correlated for the Adelie but negatively correlated to the chinstrap penguin. Detailed studies of the adult gentoo penguins, which do not disperse widely from the natal colony, will be conducted using satellite tags. The data collected in this study will improve an understanding of the structure and function of the Antarctic through research on the impact of environmental variation on the structure of upper trophic level predators such as the Pygoscelis penguins.
This project is an investigation into one mechanism by which deep ocean convection can evolve from stable initial conditions, to the extent that it becomes well enough established to bring warm water to the surface and melt an existing ice cover in late, or possibly even mid-winter. The specific study will investigate how the non-linear dependence of seawater density on temperature and salinity (the equation of state) can enhance vertical convection under typical antarctic conditions. When layers of seawater with similar densities but strong contrasts in temperature and salinity interact, there are a number of possible non-linear instabilities that can convert existing potential energy to turbulent energy. In the Weddell Sea, a cold surface mixed layer is often separated from the underlying warm, more saline water by a thin, weak pycnocline, making the water column particularly susceptible to an instability associated with thermobaricity (the pressure dependence of the thermal expansion coefficient). The project is a collaboration between New York University, Earth and Space Research, the University of Washington, the Naval Postgraduate School, and McPhee Research Company.<br/>The work has strong practical applications in contributing to the explanation for the existence of the Weddell Polynya, a 300,000 square kilometer area of open water within the seasonal sea ice of the Weddell Sea, from approximately 1975 to 1979. It has not recurred since, although indications of much smaller and less persistent areas of open water do occur in the vicinity of the Maud Rise seamount. <br/> The experimental component will be carried out on board the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer between July and September, 2005.
The U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (U.S. GLOBEC) program has the goal of understanding and ultimately predicting how populations of marine animal species respond to natural and anthropogenic changes in climate. Research in the Southern Ocean (SO) indicates strong coupling between climatic processes and ecosystem dynamics via the annual formation and destruction of sea ice. The Southern Ocean GLOBEC Program (SO GLOBEC) will investigate the dynamic relationship between physical processes and ecosystem responses through identification of critical parameters that affect the distribution, abundance and population dynamics of target species. The overall goals of the SO GLOBEC program are to elucidate shelf circulation processes and their effect on sea ice formation and krill distribution, and to examine the factors which govern krill survivorship and availability to higher trophic levels, including penguins, seals and whales. The focus of the U.S. contribution to the international SO GLOBEC program will be on winter processes. This component will focus on determining minimum population estimates, distribution and seasonality for mysticete whales, especially blue whales. This will be accomplished using passive acoustic recorders deployed on the seafloor for a period of one to two years. The deployment of a large aperture autonomous hydrophone array in the Antarctic will incorporate the use of passive acoustics as a tool for mysticete whale detection and census. The result of the integrated SO GLOBEC program will be to improve the predictability of living marine resources, especially with respect to local and global climatic shifts.
Seabird research conducted at Admiralty Bay, King George Island in the Antarctic Peninsula region has documented annual variability in the life history parameters of the population biology of three related penguin species: the Adelie, the gentoo and the chinstrap (Pygoscelis adeliae, P. papua and P. antarctica, respectively). This long-term study has collected twenty-five years of data on the three related species, including survival and recruitment, population size and breeding success, and diets and foraging ecology. The current project will extend the research linking penguin demography and foraging ecology to variability in the Antarctic marine ecosystem. A major focus of this work will be on the Adelie and gentoo penguin population biology data and the distribution and trophic interactions among the three Pygoscelis species during the breeding season and the non-breeding, winter period. Recent results have provided the first detailed data on the wintering distributions of Adelie and chinstrap penguins in the Antarctic Peninsula region, through the use of satellite tags and time-depth recorders to examine the post-fledging foraging. Specific topics of research include an examination of the size and sex composition of krill captured by penguins feeding chicks and krill collected concurrently by net hauls in the adjacent marine environment and the length-frequency distribution of krill collected from penguin diet samples. The over winter survival of penguin breeding adults and the recruitment of young (two to four year old) pre-breeding penguins to their natal colony will be compared to the extent of sea ice in the winter prior to the breeding season. These variables are expected to be positively correlated for the Adelie but negatively correlated to the chinstrap penguin. Detailed studies of the adult gentoo penguins, which do not disperse widely from the natal colony, will be conducted using satellite tags. The data collected in this study will improve an understanding of the structure and function of the Antarctic through research on the impact of environmental variation on the structure of upper trophic level predators such as the Pygoscelis penguins.
The U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (U.S. GLOBEC) program has the goal of understanding and ultimately predicting how populations of marine animal species respond to natural and anthropogenic changes in climate. Research in the Southern Ocean (SO) indicates strong coupling between climatic processes and ecosystem dynamics via the annual formation and destruction of sea ice. The Southern Ocean GLOBEC Program (SO GLOBEC) will investigate the dynamic relationship between physical processes and ecosystem responses through identification of critical parameters that affect the distribution, abundance and population dynamics of target species. The overall goals of the SO GLOBEC program are to elucidate shelf circulation processes and their effect on sea ice formation and krill distribution, and to examine the factors which govern krill survivorship and availability to higher trophic levels, including penguins, seals and whales. The focus of the U.S. contribution to the international SO GLOBEC program will be on winter processes. This component will focus on the distribution and foraging behavior of adult female crabeater seals, using a combination of satellite-linked tracking, specialized diver recorders, and stable isotopic tracers. This research will be coordinated with components focused on prey (krill) distribution and the physical environment. The results will be analyzed using an optimality model. The result of the integrated SO GLOBEC program will be to improve the predictability of living marine resources, especially with respect to local and global climatic shifts.
The U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (U.S. GLOBEC) program has the goal of understanding and ultimately predicting how populations of marine animal species respond to natural and anthropogenic changes in climate. Research in the Southern Ocean (SO) indicates strong coupling between climatic processes and ecosystem dynamics via the annual formation and destruction of sea ice. The Southern Ocean GLOBEC Program (SO GLOBEC) will investigate the dynamic relationship between physical processes and ecosystem responses through identification of critical parameters that affect the distribution, abundance and population dynamics of target species. The overall goals of the SO GLOBEC program are to elucidate shelf circulation processes and their effect on sea ice formation and krill distribution, and to examine the factors which govern krill survivorship and availability to higher trophic levels, including penguins, seals and whales. The focus of the U.S. contribution to the international SO GLOBEC program will be on winter processes. This component will focus on water-column primary production using direct experimental estimates, modeling restuls from a fast repetition rate fluorometer and modeling of primary production from both optical as well as biophysical models. This research will be coordinated with components focused on sea ice production and sea ice habitat. The result of the integrated SO GLOBEC program will be to improve the predictability of living marine resources, especially with respect to local and global climatic shifts.
9727077 SMITH The annual expansion and contraction of ice cover in the Southern Ocean is the largest seasonal process in the World Ocean. This seasonal variability in ice cover creates extensive fluctuations in primary production, which heavily impacts pelagic and benthic communities. This research will initiate a long time-series study of the water column and sea floor using long-term, autonomous monitoring and sampling systems developed for use in the Antarctic. The study will be located in Post Foster, Deception Island, which supports a pelagic and benthic fauna representative of the Antarctic coastal zone and experiences seasonal ice cover. A bottom-moored, upward-looking acoustic instrument will be deployed on the sea floor for a period of one year to monitor the vertical distribution, abundance and biomass of acoustically-detectable macrozooplankton and micronekton in the water column. Collections will be made over this period using a newly-developed vertically-profiling pump sampling. Simultaneously, a time-lapse camera system will be moored on the sea floor to monitor the spatial distribution, sizes and movements of the epibenthic megafauna component of the benthic community. The instrumentation development will allow the research project to focus on the effect of the seasonal sea ice cycle on the distribution, abundance and biomass of the macrozooplankton and micronekton in the water column. Similar questions on the distribution, abundance, size and movements of the epibenthic megafauna will be addressed. Results from this study will provide a valuable data base for the evaluation of the pelagic and benthic community responses to seasonal variability in the Southern Ocean.
This study will investigate how the formation of dense water masses on the antarctic continental shelves is affected by the periodic flushing by relatively warm circumpolar deep water, and whether the intrusion of warm water cna enhance the rate of formation of dense antarctic water. The study involves the observation of water mass modification processes on the continental shelf off the Adelie Coast in East Antarctica, near a quasi-permanent area of open water in the vicinity of the Mertz and Ninnis Glacier tongues - the so-called Mertz polynya.<br/><br/>Antarctic coastal polynyas, formed by strong offshore winds, are often referred to as major sea ice and salt "factories" because the newly formed ice is blown seaward, allowing more ice to be formed along the coast, and because the freezing process increases the salinity of the continental shelf water. The thin ice, or even open water, implies significant heat losses from the ocean to the atmosphere, which also increases the density of the shelf water. The shelf water sinks, fills any depressions in the bottom, and is gravitationally driven down the continental slope. An additional process is identified for this study and is expected to be at work in this area: the intrusion of relatively warm water onto the continental shelf, overriding the shelf water and essentially shutting down the densification processes.<br/><br/> The study will make use of the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer to obtain a closely spaced array of hydrographic stations over the continental shelf and slope along the George V Coast in the austral summer. The dat obtained here will complement a similar winter study by the Australian National Antarctic Program.<br/>***
9815961 <br/>BENGTSON<br/>The pack ice region surrounding Antarctica contains at least fifty percent of the world's population of seals, comprising about eighty percent of the world's total pinniped biomass. As a group, these seals are among the dominant top predators in Southern Ocean ecosystems, and the fluctuation in their abundance, growth patterns, life histories, and behavior provide a potential source of information about environmental variability integrated over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. This proposal was developed as part of the international Antarctic Pack Ice Seals (APIS) program, which is aimed to better understand the ecological relationships between the distribution of pack ice seals and their environment. During January-February, 2000, a research cruise through the pack ice zone of the eastern Ross Sea and western Amundsen Sea will be conducted to survey and sample along six transects perpendicular to the continental shelf. Each of these transects will pass through five environmental sampling strata: continental shelf zone, Antarctic slope front, pelagic zone, the ice edge front, and the open water outside the pack ice zone. All zones but open water will be ice-covered to some degree. Surveys along each transect will gather data on bathymetry, hydrography, sea ice dynamics and characteristics, phytoplankton and ice algae stocks, prey species (e.g., fish, cephalopods and euphausiids), and seal distribution, abundance and diet. This physical and trophic approach to investigating ecological interactions among pack ice seals, prey and the physical environment will allow the interdisciplinary research team to test the hypothesis that there are measurable physical and biological features in the Southern Ocean that result in area of high biological activity by upper trophic level predators. Better insight into the interplay among pack ice seals and biological and physical features of Antarctic marine ecosystems will allow for a better prediction of fluctuation in seal population in the context of environmental change.
9816616 Trivelpiece Long-term seabird research conducted at Admiralty Bay, which is located on King George Island in the Antarctic Peninsula region, has documented annual variability in the life history parameters of the breeding biology and ecology of the Adelie, gentoo and chinstrap penguins. Twenty-year records acquired on these species, including survival and recruitment, population size and breeding success, and diets and foraging ecology have enabled scientists to test key hypotheses regarding the linkage between these predator parameters and variability in the Antarctic marine ecosystem. This project will focus on understanding the linkages between the physical environment and the population biology of penguins, in particular, sea ice coverage and its impact on krill availability as a food source for penguins. Krill is a key food web species in the Antarctic oceans and accounts for nearly one hundred percent of the prey eaten by dominant predators such as baleen whales, seals and penguins. Analysis of long-term data sets has suggested that years of heavy winter sea ice favor krill recruitment, as larval krill find refuge and food in the sea ice habitat. It has also been observed that years of heavy sea ice favor Adelie penguin recruitment and not that of chinstrap penguins. Aspects of the work include analysis of diet samples, shipboard krill sampling, survival and recruitment studies of penguins, satellite tracking of penguins during the breeding season, and analysis of satellite sea ice images. Penguins are the key species used to monitor the impact of commercial fisheries activities in the region, so this study will provide useful information to the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which is the part of the Antarctic Treaty System which focuses on fisheries management.
*** Caron 9714299 The analysis of microbial biodiversity of extreme environments is difficult because traditional methods for examining diversity are often ineffective for assessing species richness within these communities. Additional difficulties arise due to the difficulties of recreating and maintaining pertinent environmental features during sample collection and procession. This study focuses on the protistan assemblages (algae and protozoa) in the sea ice, sediment and ocean environments of the Ross Sea, Antarctica. The identification of protistan species in natural assemblages traditionally has entailed direct microscopical analyses as well as enrichment and culture techniques for assessing biodiversity. Determination of diversity for these assemblages in therefore susceptible to biases as a consequence of sampling, enrichment and culture, as well as selective losses due to sample preservation and concentration for microscopy. The goals of this project are: (1) to develop and apply molecular biological approaches to assess species diversity of small protists (algae and protozoa smaller than 100 micrometers) in ocean water, sea ice and sediment environments and (2) to obtain baseline physiological information on the growth rates, feeding rates and growth efficiencies of cultured protozoa under pertinent temperature regimes. Molecular biological studies will involve the use of PCR-based protocols to examine small subunit ribosomal RNA gene (srDNA) diversity. Approaches and techniques developed will be applicable to any other water body or sediment and would provide a means to examine the representativeness of protistan cultures in extant culture collections. ***
This project is a study of the effects of antarctic sea ice in the global climate system, through an examination of how the spatial distribution of ice and snow thickness and of open water is reflected in satellite-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. The field investigations will be carried out from the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer in winter 1998 and summer 1999, and will produce observations of the snow and ice distribution, the crystal structure, stable isotopes, salinity and temperature structure of ice cores, and the stratigraphy, grain size, and water content of the snow cover. The SAR images from ERS-2 and RADARSAT will be acquired at the McMurdo ground station, and processed at the Alaska SAR Facility. These will provide information about the large-scale ice motion field and the small-scale ice deformation field, both of which contribute to the observed ice thickness distribution. In addition, a study of the spatial and temporal variation of the backscattered microwave energy will contribute to the development of numerical models that simulate the dynamic and thermodynamic interactions among the sea ice, ocean, and atmosphere. The surface data is vital for the extraction of environmental information from the radar data, and for the ultimate validation of interactive models.
9528807 Gordon The proposed project is part of a multi-institutional integrated study of the outflow of newly formed bottom water from the Weddell Sea and its dispersion into the South Atlantic Ocean. It builds upon earlier successful studies of the inflow of intermediate water masses into the Eastern Weddell Sea, their modification within the Weddell Gyre, and their interaction with bottom water formation processes in the western Weddell Sea. The study is called Deep Ocean Ventilation Through Antarctic Intermediate Layers (DOVETAIL) and includes six components involving hydrographic measurements, natural tracer experiments, and modeling studies. The study will be centered east of the Drake Passage where water masses from the Weddell Sea and the Scotia Sea come together in the Weddell-Scotia Confluence, and will be carried out in cooperation with the national antarctic programs of Germany and Spain. This particular component concerns observations of the temperature and salinity structure, as well as the chemical nature of the water column in the confluence region. The study has four related objectives. The first is to assess the quantity and the physical and chemical characteristics of Weddell Sea source waters for the confluence. The second is to describe the dominant processes associated with spreading and sinking of dense antarctic waters within the Weddell-Scotia Confluence. The third is to estimate the ventilation rate of the world ocean, and the fourth is to estimate seasonal fluctuations in the regional ocean transport and hydrographic structure and to assess the likely influence of seasonal to interannual variability on rates of ventilation by Weddell Sea waters. Ventilation of the deep ocean -- the rising of sub-surface water masses to the surface to be recharged with atmospheric gases and to give up heat to the atmosphere -- is a uniquely antarctic phenomenon that has significant consequences for global change by affecting the g lobal reservoir of carbon dioxide, and by modulating the amount and extent of seasonal sea ice in the southern hemisphere. This component will make systematic observations of the temperature salinity structure of the water and undertake an extensive sampling program for other chemical studies. The purpose is to identify the individual water masses and to relate their temperature and salinity characteristics to the modification processes within the Weddell Sea. ***
9614201 Costa Sea ice forms an extensive habitat in the Southern Ocean. Reports dating from the earliest explorations of Antarctica have described high concentrations of algae associated with sea-ice, suggesting that the ice must be an important site of production and biological activity. The magnitude and importance of ice-based production is difficult to estimate largely because the spatial and temporal distributions of ice communities have been examined in only a few regions, and the processes controlling production and community development in ice are still superficially understood. This study will examine sea ice communities in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica in conjunction with a studies of ice physics and remote sensing. The specific objectives of the study are: 1) to relate the overall distribution of ice communities in the Ross Sea to specific habitats that are formed as the result of ice formation and growth processes; 2) to study the initial formation of sea ice to document the incorporation and survival of organisms, in particular to examine winter populations within "snow-ice" layers to determine if there is a seed population established at the time of surface flooding; 3) to sample summer communities to determine the extent that highly productive "snow-ice" and "freeboard" communities develop in the deep water regions of the Ross Sea; 4) and to collect basic data on the biota, activity, and general physical and chemical characteristics of the ice assemblages, so that this study contributes to the general understanding of the ecology of the ice biota in pack ice regions.
The goal of this investigation is to understand the role of snow in sea ice development processes and air-ice-ocean heat exchange interactions in the seasonal and perennial sea ice zones of the Ross Sea, the Amundsen Sea, and the Bellingshausen Sea. Observations and measurements of the characteristics of sea ice and snow will be combined with numerical models of sea-ice flooding and the entrainment of snow into the ice cover in order to gain an understanding of the sea-ice heat and mass balance, and to quantify the energy exchange within the antarctic sea-ice cover. The snow measurement program, using the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer, will include depth, grain size and morphology, density, temperature, thermal conductivity, water content, and stable isotope ratio. The ice measurement program will include thickness, salinity, temperature, density, brine content, and included gas volume, as well as such structural properties as the fraction of frazil, platelet, and congelation ice in the seasonal antarctic pack ice. Differences in ice types are the result of differences in the environment in which the ice forms: frazil ice is formed in supercooled sea water, normally through wind or wave-induced turbulence, while platelet and congelation ice is formed under quiescent conditions. The fraction of frazil ice is an important variable in the energy budget of the upper ocean, and contributes significantly to the stabilization of the surface layers. The numerical models will involve the thermodynamics of phase changes from liquid water to ice, along with the resulting energy transfer, brine expulsion, and the modulating effect of a snow cover. The results are expected to have broad relevance and application to understanding the effects of sea-ice processes in global change, and atmospheric, oceanographic, and remote sensing investigations of the Southern Ocean.
This project is an examination of the physical and structural properties of the antarctic ice pack in the Amundsen, Bellingshausen, and Ross Seas, with the goal of defining the geographical variability of various ice types, the deformation processes that are active in the antarctic ice pack, and the large-scale thermodynamics and heat exchange processes of the ice- covered Southern Ocean. An additional goal is to relate specific characteristics of antarctic sea ice to its synthetic aperture radar (SAR) signature as observed from satellites. Physical properties include the salinity, temperature, and brine volumes, while structural properties include the fraction of frazil, platelet, and congelation ice of the seasonal antarctic pack ice. Differences in ice types are the result of differences in the environment in which the ice forms: frazil ice is formed in supercooled sea water, normally through wind or wave-induced turbulence, while platelet and congelation ice is formed under quiescent conditions. The fraction of frazil ice (which has been observed to be generally in excess of 50% in Weddell Sea ice floes) is an important variable in the energy budget of the upper ocean, and contributes significantly to the stabilization of the surface layers. The integration of sea ice field observations and synthetic aperture radar data analysis and modeling studies will contribute to a better understanding of sea ice parameters and their geophysical controls, and will be useful in defining the kind of air-ice-ocean interactions that can be studied using SAR data, as well as having broader relevance and application to atmospheric, biological, and oceanographic investigations of the Southern Ocean.
This project will be the first systematic oceanographic study of the continental shelves of the Amundsen and Bellings-hausen Seas, and will include temperature and salinity profiling, water sampling for ocean chemistry, and continuous precision bathymetry. Upwelling warm deep water covers the Amundsen and Bellings-hausen shelves and delivers significant amounts of heat to the sea ice and fringing ice shelves. The regional precipitation is heavy, and has historically maintained a perennial ice cover. However, within the last few years satellite images have shown that the ice has been receding dramatically, with large areas of open water persisting through the winter in sectors that earlier had been ice-covered. These anomalous ice distributions are likely to have been accompanied by altered surface water properties, and possibly changes in the deep vertical circulation. There are indications that the conditions favoring a reduction in the sea ice may migrate westward toward the Ross Sea, and may have influenced a gradual warming over recent decades on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula. The project will make use of the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer in two cruises; one in the late austral summer 1993-1994, and a subse- quent cruise in September and October to observe late winter conditions.
This project is a study of the evolution of the sea ice cover, and the mass balance of ice in the Amundsen Sea and the Bellingshausen Sea in the internationally collaborative context of the International Polar Year (2007-2008). In its simplest terms, the mass balance is the net freezing and melting that occurs over an annual cycle at a given location. If the ice were stationary and were completely to melt every year, the mass balance would be zero. While non-zero balances have significance in questions of climate and environmental change, the process itself has global consequences since the seasonal freeze-melt cycle has the effect of distilling the surface water. Oceanic salt is concentrated into brine and rejected from the ice into deeper layers in the freezing process, while during melt, the newly released and relatively fresh water stabilizes the surface layers. The observation program will be carried out during a drift program of the Nathaniel B. Palmer, and through a buoy network established on the sea ice that will make year-long measurements of ice thickness, and temperature profile, large-scale deformation, and other characteristics. The project is a component of the Antarctic Sea Ice Program, endorsed internationally by the Joint Committee for IPY. Additionally, the buoys to be deployed have been endorsed as an IPY contribution to the World Climate Research Program/Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (WCRP/SCAR) International Programme on Antarctic Buoys (IPAB). While prior survey information has been obtained in this region, seasonal and time-series measurements on sea ice mass balance are crucial data in interpreting the mechanisms of air-ice-ocean interaction. <br/> The network will consist of an array of twelve buoys capable of GPS positioning. Three buoys will be equipped with thermister strings and ice and snow thickness measurement gauges, as well as a barometer. Two buoys will be equipped with meteorological sensors including wind speed and direction, atmospheric pressure, and incoming radiation. Seven additional buoys will have GPS positioning only, and will be deployed approximately 100 km from the central site. These outer buoys will be critical in capturing high frequency motion complementary to satellite-derived ice motion products. Additional buoys have been committed internationally through IPAB and will be deployed in the region as part of this program.<br/> This project will complement similar projects to be carried out in the Weddell Sea by the German Antarctic Program, and around East Antarctica by the Australian Antarctic Program. The combined buoy and satellite deformation measurements, together with the mass balance measurements, will provide a comprehensive annual data set on sea ice thermodynamics and dynamics for comparison with both coupled and high-resolution sea ice models.
The U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (U.S. GLOBEC) program has the goal of understanding and ultimately predicting how populations of marine animal species respond to natural and anthropogenic changes in climate. Research in the Southern Ocean (SO) indicates strong coupling between climatic processes and ecosystem dynamics via the annual formation and destruction of sea ice. The Southern Ocean GLOBEC Program (SO GLOBEC) will investigate the dynamic relationship between physical processes and ecosystem responses through identification of critical parameters that affect the distribution, abundance and population dynamics of target species. The overall goals of the SO GLOBEC program are to elucidate shelf circulation processes and their effect on sea ice formation and krill distribution, and to examine the factors which govern krill survivorship and availability to higher trophic levels, including penguins, seals and whales. The focus of the U.S. contribution to the international SO GLOBEC program will be on winter processes. This component will focus on the large-scale distribution, abundance and habitat of seabirds. This will be accomplished using strip-transect surveys and spatial analysis software and models to examine the large-scale data. This research will be coordinated with seabird studies which focus on seabird diet composition and small scale foraging behavior. The result of the integrated SO GLOBEC program will be to improve the predictability of living marine resources, especially with respect to local and global climatic shifts.
The U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (U.S. GLOBEC) program has the goal of understanding and ultimately predicting how populations of marine animal species respond to natural and anthropogenic changes in climate. Research in the Southern Ocean (SO) indicates strong coupling between climatic processes and ecosystem dynamics via the annual formation and destruction of sea ice. The Southern Ocean GLOBEC Program (SO GLOBEC) will investigate the dynamic relationship between physical processes and ecosystem responses through identification of critical parameters that affect the distribution, abundance and population dynamics of target species. The overall goals of the SO GLOBEC program are to elucidate shelf circulation processes and their effect on sea ice formation and krill distribution, and to examine the factors which govern krill survivorship and availability to higher trophic levels, including penguins, seals and whales. The focus of the U.S. contribution to the international SO GLOBEC program will be on winter processes. The result of the integrated SO GLOBEC program will be to improve the predictability of living marine resources, especially with respect to local and global climatic shifts.
The U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (U.S. GLOBEC) program has the goal of understanding and ultimately predicting how populations of marine animal species respond to natural and anthropogenic changes in climate. Research in the Southern Ocean (SO) indicates strong coupling between climatic processes and ecosystem dynamics via the annual formation and destruction of sea ice. The Southern Ocean GLOBEC Program (SO GLOBEC) will investigate the dynamic relationship between physical processes and ecosystem responses through identification of critical parameters that affect the distribution, abundance and population dynamics of target species. The overall goals of the SO GLOBEC program are to elucidate shelf circulation processes and their effect on sea ice formation and krill distribution, and to examine the factors which govern krill survivorship and availability to higher trophic levels, including penguins, seals and whales. The focus of the U.S. contribution to the international SO GLOBEC program will be on winter processes. This component will focus on krill physiology, using measures of respiration, excretion, and proximate analysis. Additionally, the distribution and abundance of fishes and squid, which are krill predators, will be investigated using acoustic and net tow methods. This research will be coordinated with components studying krill in both the water column and under the ice. The result of the integrated SO GLOBEC program will be to improve the predictability of living marine resources, especially with respect to local and global climatic shifts.
This project is a contribution to a coordinated attempt to understand the interactions of biological and physical dynamics by developing relationships among the evolution of the antarctic winter ice and snow cover, biological habitat variability, and the seasonal progression of marine ecological processes. The work will be carried out in the context of the Southern Ocean Experiment of the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics Study (Globec), a large, multi-investigator study of the winter survival strategy of krill under the antarctic sea ice in the vicinity of Marguerite Bay on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula.<br/><br/>There are several aspects to this project: One is the collection, analysis, and archiving of Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP), and Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) data in order to characterize mesoscale circulation features and the regional hydrography. Another is to develop an accurate and fully validated model of tidal currents in Marguerite Bay. A third is to provide a data set of small-scale processes such as shear instabilities, tidal stirring, mesoscale eddies, and double diffusion, that are required for the effective parameterization of the vertical diffusivities of heat, salt, and nutrients. The results of this project will provide a unified data set that satisfies the data requirement of the coordinated chemical and biological studies which will link water column and sea ice processes with the biology of krill and its predators. The results further will help to link these winter observations to similar observations made in summer and elsewhere around Antarctic in the international context of the Globec program. The overall objective is to develop a comprehensive ecosystem model that will test our understanding of the system, determine its sensitivities, and to provide an organizing mechanism for integrating the Southern Ocean Globec observations. <br/>***
The U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (U.S. GLOBEC) program has the goal of understanding and ultimately predicting how populations of marine animal species respond to natural and anthropogenic changes in climate. Research in the Southern Ocean (SO) indicates strong coupling between climatic processes and ecosystem dynamics via the annual formation and destruction of sea ice. The Southern Ocean GLOBEC Program (SO GLOBEC) will investigate the dynamic relationship between physical processes and ecosystem responses through identification of critical parameters that affect the distribution, abundance and population dynamics of target species. The overall goals of the SO GLOBEC program are to elucidate shelf circulation processes and their effect on sea ice formation and krill distribution, and to examine the factors which govern krill survivorship and availability to higher trophic levels, including penguins, seals and whales. The focus of the U.S. contribution to the international SO GLOBEC program will be on winter processes. This component will focus on juvenile and adult krill and mesozooplankton prey distribution, using acoustic techniques. Studies will be conducted and krill shrinkage and mortality rates as well as krill aggregation behavior. The results will be analyzed in coordination with components involved in physical and biological models. The result of the integrated SO GLOBEC program will be to improve the predictability of living marine resources, especially with respect to local and global climatic shifts.
This project is a contribution to a coordinated attempt to understand the interactions of biological and physical dynamics by developing relationships among the evolution of the antarctic winter ice and snow cover, biological habitat variability, and the seasonal progression of marine ecological processes. The work will be carried out in the context of the Southern Ocean Experiment of the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics Study (Globec), a large, multi-investigator study of the winter survival strategy of krill under the antarctic sea ice in the vicinity of Marguerite Bay on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula.<br/><br/>The objective of this project is to make a quantitative assessment of the small scale temperature and salinity structure of the oceanic surface layer in order to study the effect of stratification and turbulence on the biochemical and biological processes under the winter sea ice.<br/><br/>The water masses on the continental shelf off Marguerite Bay consist of inflowing Upper Circumpolar Deep Water, which is relatively warm, salty, oxygen-poor, and nutrient-rich. In winter atmospheric processes cool and freshen this water, and recharge it with oxygen to produce Antarctic Surface Water which is diffused seaward, and supports both a sea ice cover and a productive krill-based food web. The modification processes work through mixing associated with shear instabilities of the internal wave field, double diffusion of salt and heat, and mixing driven by surface stress and convection. These processes will be quantified with two microstructure profilers, capable of resolving the small but crucial vertical variations that drive these processes.<br/>***
The U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (U.S. GLOBEC) program has the goal of understanding and ultimately predicting how populations of marine animal species respond to natural and anthropogenic changes in climate. Research in the Southern Ocean (SO) indicates strong coupling between climatic processes and ecosystem dynamics via the annual formation and destruction of sea ice. The Southern Ocean GLOBEC Program (SO GLOBEC) will investigate the dynamic relationship between physical processes and ecosystem responses through identification of critical parameters that affect the distribution, abundance and population dynamics of target species. The overall goals of the SO GLOBEC program are to elucidate shelf circulation processes and their effect on sea ice formation and krill distribution, and to examine the factors which govern krill survivorship and availability to higher trophic levels, including penguins, seals and whales. The focus of the U.S. contribution to the international SO GLOBEC program will be on winter processes. This component will focus on the distribution and activities of sea ice microbial communities. This will be accomplished using an integrated combination of sampling (vertical profiles, horizontal surveys, and under-ice surveys) and observational protocols. Experiments will be designed to estimate microbial activity within the sea ice and at the ice-seawater interface. The research will be coordinated with components studying the water column productivity and the sea ice habitat. The result of the integrated SO GLOBEC program will be to improve the predictability of living marine resources, especially with respect to local and global climatic shifts.
This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). <br/><br/>This award supports a project to reconstruct the past physical and chemical climate of Antarctica, with an emphasis on the region surrounding the Ross Sea Embayment, using >60 ice cores collected in this region by US ITASE and by Australian, Brazilian, Chilean, and New Zealand ITASE teams. The ice core records are annually resolved and exceptionally well dated, and will provide, through the analyses of stable isotopes, major soluble ions and for some trace elements, instrumentally calibrated proxies for past temperature, precipitation, atmospheric circulation, chemistry of the atmosphere, sea ice extent, and volcanic activity. These records will be used to understand the role of solar, volcanic, and human forcing on Antarctic climate and to investigate the character of recent abrupt climate change over Antarctica in the context of broader Southern Hemisphere and global climate variability. The intellectual merit of the project is that ITASE has resulted in an array of ice core records, increasing the spatial resolution of observations of recent Antarctic climate variability by more than an order of magnitude and provides the basis for assessment of past and current change and establishes a framework for monitoring of future climate change in the Southern Hemisphere. This comes at a critical time as global record warming and other impacts are noted in the Southern Ocean, the Antarctic Peninsula, and on the Antarctic ice sheet. The broader impacts of the project are that Post-doctoral and graduate students involved in the project will benefit from exposure to observational and modeling approaches to climate change research and working meetings to be held at the two collaborating institutions plus other prominent climate change institutions. The results are of prime interest to the public and the media Websites hosted by the two collaborating institutions contain climate change position papers, scientific exchanges concerning current climate change issues, and scientific contribution series.
Abstract<br/><br/>The project goal is to investigate the ocean-atmosphere-ice (OAI) interactions in the Amundsen and Ross Seas during the austral summer of 2007-08 using hydrographic measurements (CTD and XBT) in conjunction with (1) ship-based observations and satellite-derived estimates of sea ice concentration, and (2) ship-based observations and re-analyses of meteorological variables. The major scientific objectives are as follows: (1) to examine upper ocean characteristics along three transects in the Amundsen Sea and two transects in the Ross Sea within the context of ice-atmosphere variability over the preceding winter-spring season and as compared to other years where data are available; (2) to determine if there is additional evidence of increased upwelling of warm Circumpolar Deep Water onto the shelf in the Amundsen Sea and/or increased freshening in the Ross Sea as has been inferred by previous, but limited, ocean surveys in these regions; and (3) to examine the spatial variability in ocean thermal structure along the ship's track (outside the transects) to provide greater regional context and to compare with ocean XBT data collected during Oden 2006-07. A repeated temperature survey between the Amundsen and Ross Sea is particularly invaluable, given that this sector is the regional center of the high latitude OAI response to ENSO, thus providing opportunity for examining and linking regional oceanic temporal variability to global climate variability. The research will improve our understanding of the high latitude OAI response to climate change, and provide the physical context for the observed biology and geochemistry (investigated by our colleagues. Our results will be made widely available through research publications and internet-available databases, and through the strong public outreach efforts of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. The outreach efforts will help increase awareness and understanding of anthropogenic climate change, melting ice, and ecosystem alteration in the highly sensitive Antarctic.
This work is the continuation of a joint project with the Polar Research Institute of China to make measurements of the structure of the upper ocean in the northern Weddell Sea along the route taken by the PRI's antarctic supply vessel, R/V Xue Long. The observations, obtained from expendable instruments, complement existing hydrographic observations along various transects through the northwestern Weddell Sea region and data from moored current meter arrays in the Weddell-Scotia confluence zone. This effort builds upon a successful series of expendable bathythermographs and conductivity-temperature-depth probes obtained by the science party on board the R/V Xue Long for the past four years.<br/>The west-to-east transit of the Weddell Sea by the ship makes it possible to obtain a series of ocean soundings that are otherwise unobtainable. The information is particularly important because strong correlative links between the upper ocean temperature and salinity, the sea ice edge, and extra-polar climate features have been established. It has been shown that the Indian Ocean sector is an anomalous region with respect to connections between antarctic and lower latitude climatic features and indices. Here the Antarctic Circumpolar Current makes its closest approach to the continent and the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave is least well expressed in the existing data. The necessary instrumentation, both software and hardware, has been installed in the ship and an excellent working relationship with Chinese antarctic scientists has been developed.
This award supports the coordination of an interdisciplinary and multi institutional deep ice coring program in West Antarctica. The program will develop interrelated climate, ice dynamics, and biologic records focused on understanding interactions of global earth systems. The records will have a year-by-year chronology for the most recent 40,000 years. Lower temporal resolution records will extend to 100,000 years before present. The intellectual activity of this project includes enhancing our understanding of the natural mechanisms that cause climate change. The study site was selected to obtain the best possible material, available from anywhere, to determine the role of greenhouse gas in the last series of major climate changes. The project will study the how natural changes in greenhouse gas concentrations influence climate. The influence of sea ice and atmospheric circulation on climate changes will also be investigated. Other topics that will be investigated include the influence of the West Antarctic ice sheet on changes in sea level and the biology deep in the ice sheet. The broader impacts of this project include developing information required by other science communities to improve predictions of future climate change. The <br/>project will use mass media to explain climate, glaciology, and biology issues to a broad audience. The next generation of ice core investigators will be trained and there will be an emphasis on exposing a diverse group of students to climate, glaciology and biology research.
This collaborative study between Old Dominion University, the College of William and Mary, Earth and Space Research, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will examine the interactions among the ocean circulation, vertical mixing, sea ice, and marine biological processes on the western Antarctic Peninsula continental shelf. The study will result in analytical and numerical modeling tools that are based on, and will have been tested against the extensive data set obtained in the course of the Southern Ocean experiment of the Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics program (SO-Globec). These models will provide insight into circulation and biological dynamics that will be applicable to the development and refinement of physical and biological models for other high latitude systems. <br/><br/>SO-Globec is a multidisciplinary effort focused on understanding the physical and biological factors that influence growth, reproduction, recruitment and survival of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba). The program uses a multi-trophic level approach that includes the predators and competitors of Antarctic krill, represented by other zooplankton, fish, penguins, seals, and cetaceans. It is currently in a synthesis and modeling phase. This collaborative project is concerned with the environmental setting and dynamics that constrain ecological processes, and will be integrated with other synthesis and modeling studies that deal with grazers, predators, and other higher trophic levels
This project is an international collaborative investigation of geographic structuring, founding of new colonies, and population change of Adelie penguins (Pygoscelis adelia) nesting on Ross and Beaufort islands, Antarctica. The long-term changes occurring at these colonies are representative of changes throughout the Ross Sea, where 30% of all Adelie penguins reside, and are in some way related to changing climate. The recent grounding of two very large icebergs against Ross and Beaufort islands, with associated increased variability in sea-ice extent, has provided an unparalleled natural experiment affecting wild, interannual swings in colony productivity, foraging effort, philopatry and recruitment. Results of this natural experiment can provide insights into the demography and geographic population structuring of this species, having relevance Antarctic-wide in understanding its future responses to climate change as well as interpreting its amazingly well known Holocene history. This ongoing study will continue to consider the relative importance of resources that constrain or enhance colony growth (nesting habitat, access to food); the aspects of natural history that are affected by exploitative or interference competition among neighboring colonies (breeding success, foraging effort); climatic factors that influence the latter, especially sea ice patterns; and behavioral mechanisms that influence colony growth as a function of initial size and location (emigration, immigration). An increased effort will focus on understanding factors that affect over-winter survival. The hypothesis is that the age structure of Cape Crozier has changed over the past thirty years and no longer reflects the smaller colonies nearby. Based on recent analyses, it appears that the Ross Island penguins winter in a narrow band of sea ice north of the Antarctic Circle (where daylight persists) and south of the southern boundary of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (where food abounds). More extensive winter ice takes the penguins north of that boundary where they incur higher mortality. Thus, where a penguin winters may be due to the timing of its post-breeding departure (which differs among colonies), which affects where it first encounters sea ice on which to molt and where it will be transported by the growing ice field. Foraging effort and interference competition for food suggested as factors driving the geographic structuring of colonies. The research includes a census of known-age penguins, studies of foraging effort and overlap among colonies; and identification of the location of molting and wintering areas. Information will be related to sea-ice conditions as quantified by satellite images. Demographic and foraging-effort models will be used to synthesize results. The iceberg natural experiment is an unparalleled opportunity to investigate the demographics of a polar seabird and its response to climate change. The marked, interannual variability in apparent philopatry, with concrete data being collected on its causes, is a condition rarely encountered among studies of vertebrates. Broader impacts include collaborating with New Zealand and Italian researchers, involving high school teachers and students in the fieldwork and continuing a website to highlight results to both scientists and the general public.
The Erebus Bay Weddell seal population study in eastern McMurdo Sound, Antarctica was initiated in 1968 and represents one of the longest intensive field investigations of a long-lived mammal in existence. Over the thirty-four year period of this study a total of 15,636 animals have been tagged with 144,927 re-sighting records logged in the current database. As such, this study is an extremely valuable resource for understanding population dynamics of not only Weddell seals, but also other species of both terrestrial and marine mammals with similar life-history characteristics. With the retirement of the original investigator, Dr. Donald Siniff, this proposal represents an effort to transition the long-term studies to a new team of investigators. Dr. Robert Garrott and Dr. Jay Rotella propose building upon the foundation with two lines of investigation that combine use of the long-term database with new field initiatives. The continuity of the demographic data will be maintained by annually marking all pups born, replace lost or broken tags, and perform multiple mark-recapture censuses of the Erebus Bay seal colonies. The new data will be combined with the existing database and a progressively complex series of analyses will be performed using recently developed mark-recapture methods to decompose, evaluate, and integrate the demographic characteristics of the Erebus Bay Weddell seal population. These analyses will allow the testing of specific hypotheses about population regulation as well as temporal and spatial patterns of variation in vital rates among colonies within the population that have been posed by previous investigators, but have not been adequately evaluated due to data and analytical limitations. The primary new field initiative will involve an intensive study of mass dynamics of both pups and adult females as a surrogate measure for assessing annual variation in marine resources and their potential role in limiting and/or regulating the population. In conjunction with the collection of data on body mass dynamics the investigators will use satellite imagery to develop an extended time series of sea ice extent in McMurdo Sound. Regional extent of sea ice affects both regional primary productivity and availability of haul out areas for Weddell seals. Increased primary productivity may increase marine resources which would be expected to have a positive affect on Weddell seal foraging efficiency, leading to increased body mass. These data combined with the large proportion of known-aged seals in the current study population (>60%) will allow the investigators to develop a powerful database to test specific hypotheses about ecological processes affecting Weddell seals. Knowledge of the mechanisms that limit and/or regulate Weddell seal populations and the specific bio-physical linkages between climate, oceans, ice, and Antarctic food webs can provide important contributions to understanding of pinniped population dynamics, as well as contribute more generally to theoretical understanding of population, community, and ecosystem patterns and processes. Such knowledge can be readily applied elsewhere to enhance the ability of natural resource managers to effectively maintain assemblages of other large-mammal species and the ecological processes that they facilitate. Continuation of this long-term study may also contribute to understanding the potential impacts of human activities such as global climate warming and the commercial exploitation of Antarctic marine resources. And finally, the study can contribute significantly to the development and testing of new research and analytical methodologies that will almost certainly have many other applications.
This project will investigate the distribution, phylogenetic affinities and ecological aspects of ammonium-oxidizing bacteria in the Palmer Long-Term Ecological Research study area. Ammonia oxidation is the first step in the conversion of regenerated nitrogen to dinitrogen gas via denitrification, a 3-step pathway mediated by three distinct guilds of bacteria. As such, ammonia oxidation is important to the global nitrogen cycle. Ammonia oxidation and the overall process of nitrification-denitrification have received little attention in polar oceans where it is significant and where the effects of climate change on biogeochemical rates are likely to be pronounced. The goals of the studies proposed here are A) to obtain more conclusive information concerning composition of Antarctic ammonia oxidizers; B) to begin characterizing their ecophysiology and ecology; and C) to obtain cultures of the organism for more detailed studies. Water column and sea ice AOB assemblages will be characterized phylogenetically and the different kinds of AOB in various samples will be quantified. Nitrification rates will be measured across the LTER study area in water column, sea ice and sediment samples. Grazing rates on AOB will be determined and their sensitivity to UV light evaluated. In addition, the significance of urea nitrogen as a source of reduced nitrogen to AOB will be assessed and the temperature response of nitrification over temperature ranges appropriate to polar regions will be evaluated. This work will provide insights into the ecology of AOB and the knowledge needed to model how water column nitrification will respond to changes in the polar ecosystems accompanying global climate change.
This award supports the study of the drift and break-up of Earth's largest icebergs, which were recently released into the Ross Sea of Antarctica as a result of calving from the Ross Ice Shelf. The scientific goals of the study are to determine the physics of iceberg motion within the dynamic context of ocean currents, winds, and sea ice, which determine the forces that drive iceberg motion, and the relationship between the iceberg and geographically and topographically determined pinning points on which the iceberg can ground. In addition, the processes by which icebergs influence the local environments (e.g., sea ice conditions near Antarctica, access to penguin rookeries, air-sea heat exchange and upwelling at iceberg margins, nutrient fluxes) will be studied. The processes by which icebergs generate globally far-reaching ocean acoustic signals that are detected within the global seismic (earthquake) sensing networks will also be studied. A featured element of the scientific research activity will be a field effort to deploy automatic weather stations, seismometer arrays and GPS-tracking stations on several of the largest icebergs presently adrift, or about to be adrift, in the Ross Sea. Data generated and relayed via satellite to home institutions in the Midwest will motivate theoretical analysis and computer simulation; and will be archived on an "iceberg" website (http://amrc.ssec.wisc.edu/amrc/iceberg.html) for access by scientists and the general public. At the most broad level, the study is justified by the fact that icebergs released by the Antarctic ice sheet represent the largest movements of fresh water within the natural environment (e.g., several of the icebergs to be studied, B15, C19 and others calved since 2000 CE, represent over 6000 cubic kilometers of fresh water-an amount roughly equivalent to 100 years of the flow of the Nile River). A better understanding of the impact of iceberg drift through the environment, and particularly the impact on ocean stratification and mixing, is essential to the understanding of the abrupt global climate changes witnessed by proxy during the ice age and of concern under conditions of future greenhouse warming. On a more specific level, the study will generate a knowledge base useful for the better management of Antarctic logistical resources (e.g., the shipping lanes to McMurdo Station) that can occasionally be influenced by adverse effects icebergs have on sea ice conditions.
The Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is characterized by (1) the most rapid recent regional (winter) warming (5.35 times global mean), (2) a loss of nearly all its perennial sea ice cover on its western margin, and (3) 87% of the glaciers in retreat, contributing to global sea level rise. An ability to understand this change depends upon researchers' ability to better understand the underlying sources of this change and their driving mechanisms. Despite intensive efforts, the western AP (WAP) is chronically under-sampled. Therefore developing a capability to maintain a sustained in situ presence is a high scientific priority. The current proposal addresses this critical need through 2 objectives: (1) establish the feasibility of a Slocum Webb ocean glider to enable real-time high resolution data-adaptive polar oceanographic research; (2) address a critical question involving the regional climate change by measuring the ocean heat budget within a grid containing 14 years of ship-based ocean snapshots. This will involve the launch of the glider during the PAL-LTER austral summer research cruise, where it will fly the full along-shore distance of the LTER sample grid to be recovered at the southern extreme when the ship arrives there later in the summer. The glider will provide nearly continuous ocean property (temperature, salinity and pressure) coverage over this distance.<br/><br/>Intellectual merit. The proposed activity will involve state of the art sampling methodology that will revolutionize the ability to address climate change and other scientific issues requiring sampling densities that could not be achieved by research vessels. Specifically, the adaptive sampling capability of the glider will be used to alter its course allowing identification of routes by which the source waters of the ocean heat (and nutrients) enter the continental shelf region, while the near-continuous sampling will provide a diagnosis of how well standard shipborne stations close the heat budget. Resources are adequate for this study due to heavy leveraging by the availability of the Rutgers SLOCUM Web glider, glider control center and participation of the team of experts that flew the first such glider.<br/><br/>Broader Impacts. The proposed activity will advance discovery and understanding of the WAP responses to climate variability, to study the intricate feedback mechanisms associated with this variability and to better understand the chemical and physical processes associated with climate change. The data will be made available across the World Wide Web as it is collected, almost in real time, a potential bonanza for scientists during the upcoming International Polar Year, for classroom instruction and general outreach. Society will ultimately benefit from the improved knowledge of how climate change elsewhere in the world is impacting the unique ecosystem of the Antarctic, and driving glacial melt (sea level rise), among its other influences.
Satellite-tracked drifters provide simple yet powerful tools to track the motion of near-surface water on time scales ranging from the tidal/inertial band to monthly and longer. The research described herein will deploy satellite-tracked surface drifters during the annual austral summer Palmer Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) cruises in January 2006 and 2007 in order to investigate the nearsurface Lagrangian currents over the western Antarctic Peninsula (wAP) shelf. This region is experiencing the highest surface air temperature increase (roughly +0.06 degrees C per year) in Antarctica, and LTER and other investigators have found that ecosystem responses to the rapid warming and sea ice decline are already apparent at all trophic levels from phytoplankton to penguins. Building a better understanding of the regional circulation and its variability seems an essential component to understand existing physical and biological processes and longer-term changes in this important and sensitive Antarctic ecosystem. These new Lagrangian measurements will complement those made during the 2001-2003 U.S. Southern Ocean (SO) GLOBEC program and provide the first detailed look at the near-surface flow in this important section of the wAP shelf. In particular, the combined 3-year LTER Lagrangian measurements should identify (a) the source region(s) of the buoyant coastal current discovered flowing southwest along the outer coast of Adelaide Island and into Marguerite Bay during SO GLOBEC and (b) if organized cross-shelf flows occur that help create a two gyre circulation over the shelf as suggested by Hofmann et al (1996) based on regional hydrography. The principal investigators will process and analyze the LTER 2005-2007 drifter data and collaborate with Palmer LTER investigators on the interpretation and integration of the Lagrangian data with their studies. The edited data, analysis results, and animations of the drifter data with surface weather data will be posted on the LTER website for use and viewing by scientists, students, and the public. Results will be presented at national meetings and published in referred journals.
This award supports a small grant for exploratory research to study the processes that contribute to the melting and break-up of tabular polar icebergs as they drift north. This work will enable the participation of a group of U.S. scientists in this international project which is collaborative with the Instituto Antartico Argentino. The field team will place weather instruments, firn sensors, and a video camera on the iceberg to measure the processes that affect it as it drifts north. In contrast to icebergs in other sectors of Antarctica, icebergs in the northwestern Weddell Sea drift northward along relatively predictable paths, and reach climate and ocean conditions that lead to break-up within a few years. The timing of this study is critical due to the anticipated presence of iceberg A43A, which broke off the Ronne Ice Shelf in February 2000 and which is expected to be accessible from Marambio Station in early 2006. It has recently been recognized that the end stages of break-up of these icebergs can imitate the rapid disintegrations due to melt ponding and surface fracturing observed for the Larsen A and Larsen B ice shelves. However, in some cases, basal melting may play a significant role in shelf break-up. Resolving the processes (surface ponding/ fracturing versus basal melt) and observing other processes of iceberg drift and break up in-situ are of high scientific interest. An understanding of the mechanisms that lead to the distintegration of icebergs as they drift north may enable scientists to use icebergs as proxies for understanding the processes that could cause ice shelves to disintegrate in a warming climate. A broader impact would thus be an ability to predict ice shelf disintegration in a warming world. Glacier mass balance and ice shelf stability are of critical importance to sea level change, which also has broader societal relevance.
Major portions of the Antarctic Ice Sheet float in the surrounding ocean, at the physical and intellectual boundaries of oceanography and glaciology. These ice shelves lose mass continuously by melting into the sea, and periodically by the calving of icebergs. Those losses are compensated by the outflow of grounded ice, and by surface accumulation and basal freezing. Ice shelf sources and sinks vary on several time scales, but their wastage terms are not yet well known. Reports of substantial ice shelf retreat, regional ocean freshening and increased ice velocity and thinning are of particular concern at a time of warming ocean temperatures in waters that have access to deep glacier grounding lines.<br/>This award supports a study of the attrition of Antarctic ice shelves, using recent ocean geochemical measurements and drawing on numerical modeling and remote sensing resources. In cooperation with associates at Columbia University and the British Antarctic Survey, measurements of chlorofluorocarbon, helium, neon and oxygen isotopes will be used to infer basal melting beneath the Ross Ice Shelf, and a combination of oceanographic and altimeter data will be used to investigate the mass balance of George VI Ice Shelf. Ocean and remote sensing observations will also be used to help refine numerical models of ice cavity circulations. The objectives are to reduce uncertainties between different estimates of basal melting and freezing, evaluate regional variability, and provide an update of an earlier assessment of circumpolar net melting.<br/>A better knowledge of ice shelf attrition is essential to an improved understanding of ice shelf response to climate change. Large ice shelf calving events can alter the ocean circulation and sea ice formation, and can lead to logistics problems such as those recently experienced in the Ross Sea. Broader impacts include the role of ice shelf meltwater in freshening and stabilizing the upper ocean, and in the formation of Antarctic Bottom Water, which can be traced far into the North Atlantic. To the extent that ice shelf attrition influences the flow of grounded ice, this work also has implications for ice sheet stability and sea level rise.
This award is for support for a program of glaciochemical analyses of shallow and deep ice cores from Siple Dome, West Antarctica. Measurements that have been proposed include chloride, nitrate, sulfate, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, ammonium and methansulfonic acid. These measurements will provide information about past volcanic events, biomass source strength, sea ice fluctuations, atmospheric circulation, changes in ice-free areas and the environmental response to Earth orbit insolation changes and solar variability. The glaciochemical records from the Siple Dome core will be developed at a resolution sufficient to compare with the Summit, Greenland record, thus allowing a bipolar comparison of climate change event timing and magnitude. As part of this award, an international workshop will be held during the first year to formulate a science plan for the International Transantarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE), a program of regional surveys documenting the spatial distribution of properties measured in ice cores .
