UAF Gets $1M to Study
Sea Ice in Arctic
June 19, 2006 — By Associated Press
FAIRBANKS, Alaska — A team of
scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks have received more than
$1 million in federal grant money to study how sea ice affects the
movement of water in the Arctic Ocean.
The study, to start next summer, will focus on how storm systems stir up
ice on the upper ocean, drawing water from the warmer middle layers of the
Arctic Ocean to the surface.
The middle sections of water in the Arctic Ocean are warmer than the
surface, an unusual characteristic when compared to other oceans, said
Harper Simmons an assistant research professor at the UAF International
Arctic Research Center, who is collaborating with other scientists at the
university.
That heat, if released, is enough to melt all of the sea ice in the
Arctic, he said.
"The reason we are interested in this is there is a lot of heat in the
Arctic Ocean," he said. "The motion that results from these storms may be
important for stirring up the upper ocean and drawing heat out of the
Arctic Ocean."
Sea ice is important to understanding climate change because its presence
affects how much heat from the sun is reflected back into space, Simmons
said.
Working from the Russian icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn, the team will
install observational moorings at several locations in the Laptev Sea, off
the northern coast of Siberia.
The buoys will be anchored to the ocean floor and float about 330 feet
below the surface. They contain instruments that measure ocean current,
salinity, sea-ice drift and temperature throughout the different depths of
the ocean.
The grant is one of 25 awarded by the Department of Defense this year,
through a program geared toward states that normally receive the smallest
amounts of federal funding for university research. The program gave out
$11.5 million to universities across the country.
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Information from: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, http://www.newsminer.com
Source: Associated Press