| Summary: | Please find the near real time data available at http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/ This award supports the deployment of ice mass balance (IMB) buoys as part of the Arctic Observing Network (AON) and the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH). The autonomous, ice-based drifting buoys measure, delineate and, importantly, attribute thermodynamically-driven changes in the thickness of the ice cover. Data from the IMBs provide a time series of snow accumulation and ablation, ice growth, ice surface and bottom melt, internal ice temperature fields, and temporally-averaged estimates of ocean heat flux. The IMB buoys are also equipped to measure position, sea level pressure (SLP), and surface air temperature (SAT). The IMBs are deployed strategically and in coordination with other elements of AON to optimize the observation of changes and trends in sea ice throughout the Arctic Basin. The Broader Impacts of this award are many. IMB data have and will continue to assist large-scale modeling efforts to improve the treatment of ice growth and decay in GCMs and to assess the relative impact of ice thermodynamics on the observed changes in the Arctic sea ice cover. Results will also provide baseline data to support the development of instruments and algorithms to remotely sense snow depth, ice thickness, and the onset of freeze-up.
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