| Summary: | Intellectual Merit: This award supports a further five years of ocean observations in Davis Strait between the west coast of Greenland and the east coast of Baffin Island, Canada. The Davis Strait observing array is part of the NSF Arctic Observing Network (AON), which supports long-term, science-driven observing that supports research into understanding rapid environmental system change in the Arctic. AON is a component of the broader Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH). The Davis Strait observing array employs a complementary system of moorings, autonomous gliders and ship-based hydrographic surveys to quantify, with robust error estimates, water mass variability, volume, liquid freshwater, heat and ice fluxes, ambient noise and marine mammal presence at weekly to inter-annual timescales, with biennial assessment of biogeochemical properties that integrate large-scale change. Successful completion of the award will extend the Davis Strait observational record to >10 years, which will complement similar records at Bering Strait and Fram Strait, the other main gateways between the Arctic Ocean and sub-Arctic seas. Long-term observing records of >10 years duration are required to quantify the cyclic variability and secular change in fluxes connecting the Arctic Ocean and sub-Arctic seas, and understand the role played by the Arctic and sub-Arctic in steering decadal scale climate variability. Hydrophones mounted on the moored array and gliders will document the presence of marine mammals. Concurrent environmental characterization provided by moorings, gliders and hydrographic sampling will allow marine mammal variability to be assessed in the context of environmental change. Broader Impacts: The data obtained at Davis Strait are freely and openly available to the broader scientific community via a project Web site and at CADIS (Cooperative Arctic Data and Information Service), the AON data repository. A female graduate student will be responsible for data processing and quality control, generation of derived products and contributing to observing system design and optimization efforts. The project continues a collaboration with the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Canada, and scientists and community members in Greenland. The Davis Strait observing array is being used as a test bed for polar ocean observing research and development and technology transfer to the broader ocean science community. In Seattle, the principal investigators will continue to participate in the Polar Science Weekend at the Pacific Science Center, Seattle, and collaborate with a high school vocational program. Whale sounds will be available to a broad audience via the Macauley Library of Natural Sounds at Cornell University.
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