Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Funds are requested to purchase (a) hand-held electromagnetic sea ice thickness sensors, (b) a geodetic GPS base station, and (c) meteorological buoys to be deployed on sea ice floes to track ice motion and to observe meteorological conditions. The requested instrumentation is essential to support long-term in-situ observations of the sea ice mass balance in the Arctic Ocean. These observations are the key component of a comprehensive research program just initiated at the University of Alberta to study changes of Arctic sea ice, in particular changes of ice thickness, in relation to variations of other climate parameters, by means of in-situ, airborne, satellite remote sensing and modeling work. The main area of the planned field work will be the region of thick multi-year ice of the Arctic Ocean between the coast of Canada and the North Pole.The research is significant as the areal coverage of Arctic sea ice is strongly decreasing, at a pace much faster than predicted by any climate model. This demonstrates our poor understanding of climate processes and feedbacks in the Arctic. The disagreement can partially be explained by a misrepresentation of the sea ice mass balance in those models, which is largely due to a general lack of systematic ice thickness observations in the Arctic Ocean. The initiated work is unique worldwide, and will contribute to systematic observations of changes of ice thickness and ice dynamics.