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

Funds are requested to purchase meteorological buoys, ice and snow thickness sensors, and an airborne photo camera and infrared radiometer to obtain relevant and partially innovative sea ice mass balance information. These instruments are required to track ice motion and deformation, to measure ice thickness along extended snowmobile traverses and for validation of airborne surveys, to advance retrieval of snow thickness as one of the most important but understudied sea ice properties, and to complement airborne ice thickness measurements with additional information about ice surface types and conditions. The requested instrumentation is essential to enhance long-term in-situ and airborne observations of the sea ice mass balance in the Arctic Ocean and Canadian Archipelago. These measurements are a key component of the Canadian Arctic Sea Ice Mass Balance Observatory (CASIMBO), which is now supported by the Canada Research Chair program. This comprehensive research program was initiated in 2004 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 and airborne surveying, satellite remote sensing, and modeling. This work is significant as the areal coverage of Arctic sea ice is rapidly decreasing. The most recent 2012 Arctic sea ice minimum has exceeded the most pessimistic expectations and forecasts by climate models. This demonstrates our poor understanding of climate processes and feedbacks in the Arctic, partially related to a misrepresentation of the sea ice mass balance in those models. Improvement of the latter requires more systematic ice thickness observations. Ice thickness observations are also required in preparation of shipping and offshore oil and gas extraction in Canadian waters. This research is unique worldwide in its systematic application of long-term airborne electromagnetic (EM) thickness surveying to a large and important region of the Arctic and combination with ice drift data.