ABSTRACT OPP-9714630 VAN WOERT, MICHAEL OFFICE OF NAVAL RESEARCH This project is a key component of a large, coordinated, multi-investigator program, Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic (SHEBA) Ocean. The research program will be conducted for 14 months from a ship frozen into the ice pack. A large array of instruments will be deployed from a central camp surrounding the ship to measure ice, ocean, and atmospheric conditions through a full annual cycle. This research will be important for the determination of the effects of incoming heat radiating onto the ice floe as a function of changing atmospheric and oceanic conditions. The SHEBA results will help determine how atmospheric heating is coupled to adsorption of heat by the sea ice. These measurements are critical to understanding how heat is reflected or absorbed by the ice as it melts in the summer and thickens in the winter in response to seasonal variations in climate. This project will provide the ship from which the SHEBA experiment will be conducted and the icebreaker to insert the ship into the pack ice in the Beaufort Sea at approximately 750 N, 1450 W. The logistical infrastructure provided by this project makes an essential contribution to the SHEBA team of researchers. The combined set of measurements in SHEBA will allow refinement of climate models for the Arctic region. Those improved models will lead to better predictions of the climate and the permanence of the Arctic ice cap under a proposed global warming that could occur if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are increased above present levels.
