Collaborative Research: ISPOL-1 Ocean Turbulent Flux Project

Mcphee Research Company, Naches WA

Investigators

Abstract

This collaborative project (with the Naval Postgraduate School) is a study of heat, momentum, and salinity exchange in the upper ocean as a component of the German Antarctic Program's Ice Station Polarstern (ISPOL) project, a planned fifty-day drift in the western Weddell Sea in November-December 2004. Two instrument clusters will measure the three-dimensional current, temperature, and salinity structure, to characterize the ambient oceanic turbulence structure. These data will provide the quantitative estimates of the eddy viscosity and diffusivity profiles in the upper ocean necessary for realistic modeling of scalar distributions and fluxes in the ice/upper ocean system, including fluxes of nutrients. In the event that the drift of Polarstern encounters the continental shelf, the turbulence measuring system, designed for depths in excess of 500 m, may be used for limited studies of the bottom boundary layer. This would add a useful dimension to the experiment, by making direct flux measurements in a density flow transporting cold bottom water off of the eastern Antarctic Peninsula shelf. The work continues a collaboration with scientists from the international community interested in the Southern Ocean south of 60 deg South that began with planning for Ice Station Weddell in 1990. It provides an opportunity for American participation in a German-led experiment with good potential for cross-fertilization of concepts and techniques for understanding high latitude air-sea-ice interaction. It includes partial support for a postdoctoral researcher and the opportunity to advise postgraduate thesis work.