High‐frequency scattering in the Arctic

1992 ◽  
Vol 92 (4) ◽  
pp. 2342-2342
Author(s):  
Gary Steven Sammelmann
Keyword(s):  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bennet Juhls ◽  
Anne Morgenstern ◽  
Pier Paul Overduin

<p>River biogeochemistry at any location integrates environmental processes over a definable upstream area of the river watershed. Therefore, biogeochemical parameters of river water are powerful indicators of the climate change impact on the entire watershed and smaller parts of it.</p><p>The current warming of the Siberian Arctic is changing atmospheric forcing, precipitation, subsurface water storage, and runoff from rivers to the Arctic Ocean. A number of studies predict an increase of organic carbon export by rivers into the Arctic Ocean with further warming of the Arctic. Major potential drivers for this increase are the rise of river discharge and permafrost thaw, which mobilizes organic matter.</p><p>Here, we present results of high frequency monitoring program of the Lena River waters in the central part of its delta at the Laptev Sea. For the first time, a number of biogeochemical parameters such as dissolved organic carbon (DOC), coloured dissolved organic matter, electrical conductivity, temperature, and d<sup>18</sup>O isotopes were measured at an interval of every few days throughout the entire season. Currently, the data set comprises two complete years from the spring 2018 until the spring 2020, which were characterized by extremely high and low summer discharges, respectively. While 2018 to 2019 was the fourth highest on record from 1936 to present, resulting in an annual DOC flux of 6.8 Tg C yr<sup>-1</sup>, 2019 was the sixth lowest discharge year with a significantly lower DOC flux of 4.5 Tg C yr<sup>-1</sup>. Endmember analysis using electrical conductivity and d<sup>18</sup>O isotopes showed that rainwater transported less DOC in 2019 (1.5 Tg C) than in 2018 (2.9 Tg C) although the winter base flow and the snow and ice meltwater transported similar amounts.</p><p>The biogeochemical response of the Lena River water provides us with new insights into the catchment processes, including permafrost thaw and potential mobilization of previously frozen organic carbon. Our new monitoring program will serve 1) as a baseline to measure future changes and 2) as a training dataset to project changes under future climate scenarios.</p>


1997 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 177-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Richter-Menge

In situ measurements of ice stress were made on a multi-year floe in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea over a 6 month period, beginning in October 1993. The data suggest that, in this region of the Arctic during this experiment, there were two main sources of stress: a thermally induced stress caused by changes in air temperature, and a stress generated by ice motion. Due to the natural damping of the snow and ice above the sensor, the thermally-induced stresses are low frequency (order of days). Stresses associated with periods of ice motion have both a high-frequency (order of hours), and low-frequency, content. The relative significance of these sources of stress is seasonal, reflecting the changes in the strength and continuity of the pack.


1985 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 465-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Schulkin ◽  
G. R. Garrison ◽  
T. Wen

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Outi M. Tervo ◽  
Susanna B. Blackwell ◽  
Susanne Ditlevsen ◽  
Alexander S. Conrad ◽  
Adeline L. Samson ◽  
...  

Anthropogenic activities are increasing in the Arctic, posing a threat to niche-conservative species with high seasonal site fidelity, such as the narwhal Monodon monoceros . In this controlled sound exposure study, six narwhals were live-captured and instrumented with animal-borne tags providing movement and behavioural data, and exposed to concurrent ship noise and airgun pulses. All narwhals reacted to sound exposure with reduced buzzing rates, where the response was dependent on the magnitude of exposure defined as 1/distance to ship. Buzzing rate was halved at 12 km from the ship, and whales ceased foraging at 7–8 km. Effects of exposure could be detected at distances > 40 km from the ship.At only a few kilometres from the ship, the received high-frequency cetacean weighted sound exposure levels were below background noise indicating extreme sensitivity of narwhals towards sound disturbance and demonstrating their ability to detect signals embedded in background noise. The narwhal's reactions to sustained disturbance may have a plethora of consequences both at individual and population levels. The observed reactions of the whales demonstrate their auditory sensitivity but also emphasize, that anthropogenic activities in pristine narwhal habitats needs to be managed carefully if healthy narwhal populations are to be maintained.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jutta Vüllers ◽  
Peggy Achtert ◽  
Ian M. Brooks ◽  
Michael Tjernström ◽  
John Prytherch ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Arctic Ocean 2018 (AO2018) expedition took place in the central Arctic Ocean in August and September 2018. An extensive suite of instrumentation provided detailed measurements of surface water chemistry and biology, sea ice and ocean physical and biogeochemical properties, surface exchange processes, aerosols, clouds, and the state of the atmosphere. The measurements provide important information on the coupling of the ocean and ice surface to the atmosphere and in particular to clouds. This paper provides: (i) an overview of the synoptic-scale atmospheric conditions and its climatological anomaly to help interpret the process studies and put the detailed observations from AO2018 into a larger context, both spatially and temporally; (ii) a statistical analysis of the thermodynamic and near-surface meteorological conditions, boundary layer, cloud, and fog characteristics; (iii) a comparison of the results to observations from earlier Arctic Ocean expeditions, in particular AOE96, SHEBA, AOE2001, ASCOS, ACSE, and AO2016, to provide an assessment of the representativeness of the measurements. The results show that near-surface conditions were broadly comparable to earlier experiments, however the thermodynamic vertical structure was quite different. An unusually high frequency of well-mixed boundary layers up to about 1 km depth occurred, and only a few cases of the prototypical Arctic summer single-layer stratocumulus deck were observed. Instead, an unexpectedly high amount of multiple cloud layers and mid-level clouds was present throughout the campaign. These differences from previous studies are related to the high frequency of cyclonic activity in the central Arctic in 2018.


1983 ◽  
Vol 74 (S1) ◽  
pp. S20-S20
Author(s):  
Robert E. Francois
Keyword(s):  

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (17) ◽  
pp. 8115-8129 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Kuttippurath ◽  
G. Nikulin

Abstract. We present an analysis of the major sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs) in the Arctic winters 2003/04–2009/10. There were 6 major SSWs (major warmings [MWs]) in 6 out of the 7 winters, in which the MWs of 2003/04, 2005/06, and 2008/09 were in January and those of 2006/07, 2007/08, and 2009/10 were in February. Although the winter 2009/10 was relatively cold from mid-December to mid-January, strong wave 1 activity led to a MW in early February, for which the largest momentum flux among the winters was estimated at 60° N/10 hPa, about 450 m2 s−2. The strongest MW, however, was observed in 2008/09 and the weakest in 2006/07. The MW in 2008/09 was triggered by intense wave 2 activity and was a vortex split event. In contrast, strong wave 1 activity led to the MWs of other winters and were vortex displacement events. Large amounts of Eliassen-Palm (EP) and wave 1/2 EP fluxes (about 2–4 ×105 kg s−2) are estimated shortly before the MWs at 100 hPa averaged over 45–75° N in all winters, suggesting profound tropospheric forcing for the MWs. We observe an increase in the occurrence of MWs (~1.1 MWs/winter) in recent years (1998/99–2009/10), as there were 13 MWs in the 12 Arctic winters, although the long-term average (1957/58–2009/10) of the frequency stays around its historical value (~0.7 MWs/winter), consistent with the findings of previous studies. An analysis of the chemical ozone loss in the past 17 Arctic winters (1993/94–2009/10) suggests that the loss is inversely proportional to the intensity and timing of MWs in each winter, where early (December–January) MWs lead to minimal ozone loss. Therefore, this high frequency of MWs in recent Arctic winters has significant implications for stratospheric ozone trends in the northern hemisphere.


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