Data Map
Vast environmental complexities in Chukchi Sea
Research team from the Chinese ice breaker – the Snow Dragon, left the Chukchi Sea few days ago.
Variation of vertical profiles of sea ice temperatures, ocean currents, concentration of salt and adjacent atmosphere are being measured by ice drifting buoys, deployed in the Chukchi Sea as a part of 5th Chinese National Arctic Research Expedition.
Research buoys were left at the Sea yesterday by scientists who now, for the rest of the trip will be observing the variation of changing environmental complexes.
The buoy observation from the last Chinese scientific expedition to the Arctic which took place in 2003 – 2005 showed that the cooling of the ice began in late September and reached the bottom in late December.
At that time, some major changes were observed in upper portion of the ice in response to warming, overlying atmosphere. The changes were also associated with the periodicity of storms in the northeast Chukchi Sea.
In climate and marine scientific research, buoys are used to observe the vertical ice temperature profiles and to diagnose the sea ice model evaluation.
Recently, much effort has been devoted to improve parameterizations of sea ice thermodynamics in sea ice models. To validate these improvements, regular measurements, addressing characteristic for the Arctic processes, need to be taken by the scientists.
The expedition is scheduled to last 90 days, with a journey covering about 17, 000 nautical miles. During the voyage, scientists will measure the impact of changing Arctic climate on other non – Arctic states, especially China. Today, leaving Chukchi Sea, they are sailing further to reach Iceland in the middle of August.
