An analysis of one year of surface layer meteorological data from the Arctic pack ice

• Main Author: Baumann, Richard James
• Other Authors: Paulson, Clayton A., School of Oceanography, Oregon State University. Graduate School
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English; unknown
• Published: Oregon State University
• Subjects: Ice > Arctic regions; Beaufort Sea
• Online Access: https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/cz30pw94q

The thesis describes the properties of surface wind and air temperature time series recorded at three locations on the pack ice of the Beaufort Sea. Time series consisting of sequential one-half hourly means were constructed for a period of approximately a year. A diurnal fluctuation in air temperature is found for the late summer, early fall and spring seasons only. Wind speed does not show a significant diurnal fluctuation for any season. There is very little seasonal variability in the wind speed while significant variation is present in the air temperature. The integrated wind speed spectrum (i. e. variance) is 80% less than the integrated sum of the wind component spectra indicating that for periods longer than a day, directional fluctuations contribute much more to the variance of the wind record than do speed fluctuations. Although the measurements only approach the microscale region, there seems to be no consistent indication of a microscale peak in the variance preserving representation of the wind speed spectrum. Time series of daily mean horizontal divergence and vertical component of vorticity for both the wind field and ice motion are examined. For a period of 355 days there is significant negative correlation (-0.65) between the wind divergence and wind vorticity series and significant positive correlation (0.65) between the wind vorticity and ice vorticity series.