| Summary: | The flux through the Canadian Archipelago is known to be a missing variable in the freshwater flux calculations for the Arctic Ocean. This effort will be part of a combined US-Canadian-Japanese research team that will apply a combination of proven and innovative technologies to do among others; monitor water properties and currents over a 3.5 year period in Nares Strait, Cardigan St. and Hell Gate using moorings; measure ice-fluxes through satellite-based and mooring observations; create a tracer hydrographic time-series, explore bivalve shell records as a proxy for historical through flow variability; and use Arctic and global models to parameterize oceanic through flow. Outreach to secondary education and general public levels via teacher participation in cruises, media and internet interactions with local communities, i.e. the Nunavut Federation, undergraduate, graduate and technical training and communication with the broader scientific community are part of the research plan. The following are components of the field research plan: 1) Mooring arrays at Nares Strait and Jones Sound. The array will be deployed across the Kennedy Channel and will resolve the spatial and temporal scales required to develop accurate estimate of fluxes, errors and dynamical responses to remote and local forcing. 2) Use of Advance Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR) and AVHRR imagery to determine ice advection. Comparing staelliite data to upward looking sonar measurements will assess errors in ice motion estimates. These measurements will be used to estimate ice fluxes across defined sections of Nares Strait, Jones Sound and Lancaster Sound. 3) Various chemical species will be measured as hydrographic tracers to decipher water mass origins. Stable carbon and oxygen isotopic compositions of modern mollusks will be measured to trace seasonal and interannual variations in hydrographic conditions. 4) Models will be used to determine wind stress fields in the Strait. A regional and global system modeling effort will assess ice dynamics and freshwater flow both east and west o Greenland.
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