Completing the Puzzle – Expedition and Summer School Goals

It’s a little deceiving, a little word like climate can have such BIG meaning. You can break it down a little more, and talk about oceanography, atmospheric science, meteorology, geology, physics, biology, technology… Then you can combine those things and get more detailed – hydrometeorology, biotechnology, geophysics… With this research expedition and summer school, scientists onboard will aim to look in even more detail in all these areas – with the goal of adding puzzle pieces to the BIG picture of climate.

What are these puzzle pieces? Based on operations and activities from this expedition, they want to:

• Quantify the structure and variability of the circulation in the upper, intermediate, and lower layers of the Eurasian and Canadian Basins

• Evaluate mechanisms by which the Atlantic Water is transformed on its pathway along the slope of the Eurasian and Canadian Basins

• Evaluate the impact of heat transport from the Atlantic Water on ice

• Investigate the strength and variability of the Fram Strait and the Barents Sea branches of the Atlantic Water

• Estimate the rate of exchange between the arctic shelves and the interior in order to clarify mechanisms of the arctic halocline formation

• Evaluate the storage and variability of heat and fresh water, particularly within the halocline of the Canada Basin

• Quantify Pacific water transport, variability, and water-mass transformation mechanisms from the Chukchi Sea shelf toward the Eurasian Basin

These are certainly some impressive puzzle pieces, and scientists will be working together after the expedition as well, to put those pieces together AND fit them into the BIG picture.