COMPARATIVE STUDY OF OCEANOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS ABOVE/UNDER FIRST-YEAR SEA ICE AT LOW AND HIGH LATITUDES (16th Symposium on Polar Biology)

• Main Authors: シラサワ クニオ /, Kunio SHIRASAWA, R. Grant INGRAM
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Proceeding 1995
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Okhotsk; Resolute Passage; Polar Biology; Proceedings of the NIPR Symposium on Polar Biology; Sea ice; ice covered areas; ice covered waters
• Online Access: https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=5254; http://id.nii.ac.jp/1291/00005254/; https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=5254&item_no=1&attribute_id=18&file_no=1

As part of the joint Japanese and Canadian scientific experiment, the SARES (Saroma-Resolute Studies) project, to study "the biological CO_2 pump under the first-year ice in the Arctic Ocean" and "the biological processes in Arctic polynya areas", meteorological and oceanographic studies were carried out successively at the Saroma Ko lagoon, Hokkaido, Japan from December 1991 to April 1992, and in Resolute Passage, Canadian Arctic from April to June 1992. Seasonal sea ice at its southern limit in the Sea of Okhotsk reaches a maximum thickness of about 40 cm at the Saroma Ko lagoon, while ice reaches a maximum thickness of about 2 m in Resolute Passage. In this paper, meteorological and oceanographic variables obtained from both field experiments of the SARES project are compared. The presence of sea ice cover leads to major changes in the flow and stratification regime. We observed much weaker currents and the presence of small scale vertical structure in the temperature-salinity regime under complete landfast ice covered areas. It is believed that ice melt and freshwater input from a small river played an important role in generating the observed variability in the lagoon. The presence/absence of sea ice plays a significant role in determining the oceanographic characteristics of the lagoon and its potential for biological productivity. It is believed that the difference in solar irradiance between low and high latitudes in seasonally sea-ice covered waters plays a significant role in biological productivity in the spring regime.