Seasonal Ice Zone Reconnaissance Surveys for Aircraft-Based Eulerian and
Lagrangian Sampling of a Changing Arctic
Abstract
Seasonal Ice Zone Reconnaissance Surveys (SIZRS) is a multi-investigator
program of repeated ocean, ice, and atmospheric
measurements. These measurements make use of U.S. Coast Guard flights
across the Beaufort-Chukchi Sea seasonal sea ice zone (SIZ), the region
between maximum winter ice extent and minimum summer ice extent. The
long-term goal of SIZRS is to track and understand the interplay among
the ice, atmosphere, and ocean, contributing to the rapid decline in
summer ice extent. The fundamental SIZRS approach is to make monthly
flights, June to October, with US Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak C-130s
across the Beaufort Sea SIZ along 150°W from 72°N to 76°N or
~ 1 degree of latitude north of the ice edge, whichever
is farther north. We make oceanography stations every degree of latitude
by dropping Aircraft eXpendable CTDs (AXCTDs) and Aircraft eXpendable
Current Profilers (AXCPs) typically while traveling northbound (PI: J.
Morison). On the return leg, we drop atmospheric dropsondes from 3000
meters altitude to measure atmospheric temperature, humidity, and winds
(PI: A. Schweiger). We also drop UpTempO drifting buoys that report time
series of ocean temperature profiles (PI: M. Steele) and various
meteorology and ice-tracking buoys of the International Arctic Buoy
Program (IABP, PI: I. Rigor).