Currents, fronts and fine structure in the marginal ice zone of the Chukchi Sea

• Published in: Polar Record
• Main Author: Bourke, Robert H.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1983
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Ecology; Geography, Planning and Development; Arctic; Chukchi Sea; Pacific; Arctic Submarine Laboratory; Chukchi; Polar Record; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247400021975; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247400021975

Project MIZPAC (Marginal Ice Zone Pacific) was initiated in 1971 by the Arctic Submarine Laboratory, San Diego, California, to further the US Navy's understanding of problems associated with operating submarines under ice-covered oceans. Oceanographers from the Naval Postgraduate School took part in six summer cruises to the marginal sea ice zone (MIZ) of the shallow Chukchi Sea between 1971 and 1978 (Fig 1), providing the first detailed observations of the temperature-salinity structure within this dynamically active zone. Strong horizontal gradients of temperature and salinity marking boundaries between water masses (fronts), are widespread and well developed (Paquette and Bourke 1981). Where water masses intrude upon each other large-scale temperature inversions (anomalous increases in temperature with depth) often appear. Termed fine structure, these temperature anomalies include some of the largest observed anywhere in the world's oceans, sometimes exceeding 2°C over vertical distances of 5–10 m (Paquette and Bourke 1979). This article describes some of the fronts and fine structures observed in the Chukchi Sea, and shows how they develop within the general patterns of sea ice and circulation.