Continuous observations of the surface energy budget and meteorology over the Arctic sea ice during MOSAiC (original) (raw)
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The Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition explored the coupled central arctic climate system from late September 2019 to late September 2020. The project was based on and around the icebreaker Polarstern, as it was frozen into, and drifted with, the arctic sea ice from the Siberian sector of the Arctic, past the North Pole, and on towards the Fram Strait. The expedition was designed as a "sea ice Lagrangian" experiment, wherein a specific region of sea ice was passively followed over the course of a year, serving as an integrator of thermodynamic, dynamic, chemical, and biological interactions with the atmosphere and ocean. The overall scientific goal for the mission was to understand the processes driving the ongoing rapid decline of sea ice as well as the implications of those changes on the regional and global climate systems. In particular, the expedition was constructed in a way to observe and understand the physical, chemical, and biological processes that serve to couple and link the arctic atmosphere, sea ice, ocean, and ecosystem. Guiding science questions for the mission include: 1. What are the seasonally varying energy sources, mixing processes, and interfacial fluxes that affect the heat and momentum budgets of the arctic atmosphere, ocean, and sea ice?
Overview of the MOSAiC expedition: Snow and sea ice
Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 2022
Year-round observations of the physical snow and ice properties and processes that govern the ice pack evolution and its interaction with the atmosphere and the ocean were conducted during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition of the research vessel Polarstern in the Arctic Ocean from October 2019 to September 2020. This work was embedded into the interdisciplinary design of the 5 MOSAiC teams, studying the atmosphere, the sea ice, the ocean, the ecosystem, and biogeochemical processes. The overall aim of the snow and sea ice observations during MOSAiC was to characterize the physical properties of the snow and ice cover comprehensively in the central Arctic over an entire annual cycle. This objective was achieved by detailed observations of physical properties and of energy and mass balance of snow and ice. By studying snow and sea ice dynamics over nested spatial scales from centimeters to tens of kilometers, the variability...
Arctic Report Card 2020: The MOSAiC Expedition: A Year Drifting with the Arctic Sea Ice
2020
• An international and interdisciplinary team made comprehensive observations of the atmosphere, sea ice, ocean, ecosystem, and biogeochemistry over an annual cycle in the Central Arctic. • The MOSAiC year was characterized, above all, by a thin and dynamic sea ice pack, reflecting the impact of the multi-decadal warming trend in global air temperatures on the Arctic region. • The unprecedented data set will foster cross-cutting, process-based research that will advance understanding, bolster observational techniques from the surface and satellites, and enable improved modeling and predictive capabilities.
Elementa, 2023
This study evaluates the simulation of wintertime (15 October, 2019, to 15 March, 2020) statistics of the central Arctic near-surface atmosphere and surface energy budget observed during the MOSAiC campaign with short-term forecasts from 7 state-of-the-art operational and experimental forecast systems. Five of these systems are fully coupled ocean-sea ice-atmosphere models. Forecast systems need to simultaneously simulate the impact of radiative effects, turbulence, and precipitation processes on the surface energy budget and nearsurface atmospheric conditions in order to produce useful forecasts of the Arctic system.This study focuses on processes unique to the Arctic, such as, the representation of liquid-bearing clouds at cold temperatures and the representation of a persistent stable boundary layer. It is found that contemporary models still struggle to maintain liquid water in clouds at cold temperatures. Given the simple balance between net longwave radiation, sensible heat flux, and conductive ground flux in the wintertime Arctic surface energy balance, a bias in one of these components manifests as a compensating bias in other terms. This study highlights the different manifestations of model bias and the potential implications on other terms. Three general types of challenges are found within the models evaluated: representing the radiative impact of clouds, representing the interaction of atmospheric heat fluxes with sub-surface fluxes (i.e., snow and ice properties), and representing the relationship between stability and turbulent heat fluxes.
Dynamics of Arctic sea ice discussed at workshop
Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, 2000
Sea ice is an interesting geophysical material: it behaves as a large-scale hardening plastic. Consider the impact of the sea-ice covers mechanical behavior on the energy and momentum exchange within the complex atmosphere-ice-ocean system. Sea ice acts as an insulator between the relatively warm ocean water and the cold polar atmosphere. Sea ice cover interacts with the atmosphere by regulat ing air-sea fluxes, changing surface albedo, and influencing the long-wave radiative balance. Dramatic changes that affect these interac tions have occurred in Arctic sea ice cover over the last few decades. Ice thickness has decreased more than 30% at certain locations in the central Arctic since the early 1970s, and ice extent has decreased steadily by 4% per decade in summer. During the same period, there has been a persistent positive phase to the Arctic Oscillation (AO) in the overlying atmosphere. The AO represents a shift of air mass from the Arctic to mid-latitudes; thus, the Arctic, which was once considered small and remote, is now an increasingly important component in the climate system.
Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene
The magnitude, spectral composition, and variability of the Arctic sea ice surface albedo are key to understanding and numerically simulating Earth’s shortwave energy budget. Spectral and broadband albedos of Arctic sea ice were spatially and temporally sampled by on-ice observers along individual survey lines throughout the sunlit season (April–September, 2020) during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition. The seasonal evolution of albedo for the MOSAiC year was constructed from spatially averaged broadband albedo values for each line. Specific locations were identified as representative of individual ice surface types, including accumulated dry snow, melting snow, bare and melting ice, melting and refreezing ponded ice, and sediment-laden ice. The area-averaged seasonal progression of total albedo recorded during MOSAiC showed remarkable similarity to that recorded 22 years prior on multiyear sea ice during the Surface Heat ...
Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene
Sea ice thickness is a key parameter in the polar climate and ecosystem. Thermodynamic and dynamic processes alter the sea ice thickness. The Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition provided a unique opportunity to study seasonal sea ice thickness changes of the same sea ice. We analyzed 11 large-scale (∼50 km) airborne electromagnetic sea thickness and surface roughness surveys from October 2019 to September 2020. Data from ice mass balance and position buoys provided additional information. We found that thermodynamic growth and decay dominated the seasonal cycle with a total mean sea ice thickness increase of 1.4 m (October 2019 to June 2020) and decay of 1.2 m (June 2020 to September 2020). Ice dynamics and deformation-related processes, such as thin ice formation in leads and subsequent ridging, broadened the ice thickness distribution and contributed 30% to the increase in mean thickness. These processes caused a 1-month delay...
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2016
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Arctic Radiation-IceBridge Sea and Ice Experiment (ARISE) acquired unique aircraft data on atmospheric radiation and sea ice properties during the critical late summer to autumn sea ice minimum and commencement of refreezing. The C-130 aircraft flew 15 missions over the Beaufort Sea between 4 and 24 September 2014. ARISE deployed a shortwave and longwave broadband radiometer (BBR) system from the Naval Research Laboratory; a Solar Spectral Flux Radiometer (SSFR) from the University of Colorado Boulder; the Spectrometer for Sky-Scanning, Sun-Tracking Atmospheric Research (4STAR) from the NASA Ames Research Center; cloud microprobes from the NASA Langley Research Center; and the Land, Vegetation and Ice Sensor (LVIS) laser altimeter system from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. These instruments sampled the radiant energy exchange between clouds and a variety of sea ice scenarios, including prior to and after refreezing be...