USAP-DC

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.

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.

Person	Role
Ackley, Stephen	Investigator and contact
Bell, Robin	Co-Investigator
Weissling, Blake	Co-Investigator
Nuss, Wendell	Investigator
Maksym, Edward	Investigator
Stammerjohn, Sharon	Investigator
Cassano, John	Co-Investigator
Guest, Peter	Investigator
Sedwick, Peter	Investigator
Xie, Hongjie	Co-Investigator

Antarctic Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences	Award # 1543483
Antarctic Integrated System Science	Award # 1341725
Antarctic Integrated System Science	Award # 1341717
Antarctic Instrumentation and Support	Award # 1341606
Antarctic Integrated System Science	Award # 1341606
Antarctic Integrated System Science	Award # 1341513

USAP-1341717_1
NBP1704

Deployment	Type
IcePod LC 130 2016 Ross Sea Sea Ice Survey	airborne survey
NBP1704 PIPERS Cruise	ship expedition

PIPERS_Data_Management_Plan.pdf

DMP_20150406_PeterSedwick.pdf

Repository	Title (link)	Format(s)	Status
USAP-DC	NBP1704 CTD sensor data	Not Provided	exists
USAP-DC	PIPERS Airborne LiDAR Data	Not Provided	exists
USAP-DC	ASPeCt Visual Ice Observations on PIPERS Cruise NBP1704 April-June 2017	Not Provided	exists
R2R	Expedition data of NBP1704	Not Provided	exists
USAP-DC	SUMO unmanned aerial system (UAS) atmospheric data	Not Provided	exists
USAP-DC	PIPERS Meteorology Time Series	Not Provided	exists
USAP-DC	PIPERS Meteorology Rawinsonde Data	Not Provided	exists
USAP-DC	NBP1704 CTD sensor data	Not Provided	deprecated
USAP-DC	Sea Ice Layer Cakes, PIPERS 2017	Not Provided	exists
BCO-DMO	Impact of Convective Processes and Sea Ice Formation on the Distribution of Iron in the Ross Sea: Closing the Seasonal Cycle	Not Provided	exists
R2R	NBP1704 Expedition Data	Not Provided	exist
USAP-DC	PIPERS Noble Gases	CSV	exists

1. Li, H., Xie, H., Kern, S., Wan, W., Ozsoy, B., Ackley, S., & Hong, Y. (2018). Spatio-temporal variability of Antarctic sea-ice thickness and volume obtained from ICESat data using an innovative algorithm. Remote Sensing of Environment, 219, 44–61. (doi:10.1016/j.rse.2018.09.031)
2. Wang, X., Guan, F., Liu, J., Xie, H., & Ackley, S. (2016). An improved approach of total freeboard retrieval with IceBridge Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM) elevation and Digital Mapping System (DMS) images. Remote Sensing of Environment, 184, 582–594. (doi:10.1016/j.rse.2016.08.002)
3. Wang, X., Jiang, W., Xie, H., Ackley, S., & Li, H. (2020). Decadal Variations of Sea Ice Thickness in the Amundsen‐Bellingshausen and Weddell Seas Retrieved From ICESat and IceBridge Laser Altimetry, 2003–2017. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 125(7). (doi:10.1029/2020jc016077)
4. Cassano, J. J., Nigro, M. A., Seefeldt, M. W., Katurji, M., Guinn, K., Williams, G., & DuVivier, A. (2021). Antarctic atmospheric boundary layer observations with the Small Unmanned Meteorological Observer (SUMO). Earth System Science Data, 13(3), 969–982. (doi:10.5194/essd-13-969-2021)
5. Cassano, J. J., Nigro, M. A., Seefeldt, M. W., Katurji, M., Guinn, K., Williams, G., & DuVivier, A. (2020). Antarctic atmospheric boundary layer observations with the Small Unmanned Meteorological Observer (SUMO). (doi:10.5194/essd-2020-284)
6. Mei, M. J., & Maksym, T. (2020). A Textural Approach to Improving Snow Depth Estimates in the Weddell Sea. Remote Sensing, 12(9), 1494. (doi:10.3390/rs12091494)
7. Sedwick, P. N., Sohst, B. M., O’Hara, C., Stammerjohn, S. E., Loose, B., Dinniman, M. S., Buck, N. J., Resing, J. A., & Ackley, S. F. (2022). Seasonal Dynamics of Dissolved Iron on the Antarctic Continental Shelf: Late‐Fall Observations From the Terra Nova Bay and Ross Ice Shelf Polynyas. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 127(10). Portico. (doi:10.1029/2022jc018999)
8. Loose, B., Stammerjohn, S., Sedwick, P., & Ackley, S. (2023). Sea Ice Formation, Glacial Melt and the Solubility Pump Boundary Conditions in the Ross Sea. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 128(8). Portico. (doi:10.1029/2022jc019322)