Thesis (M. Eng.), Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1998. / Bibliography: leaves 125-129.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1988. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Sc. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Meteorology, 1980. / Supervised by Terrance M. Joyce. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 315-325).

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2004. / Bibliography: leaves 108-112.

Thesis (M.S.) University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research .pdf file viewed on (June 25, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

Direct measurements of wintertime surface heat fluxes between the ocean and atmosphere in lead and polynya environments in the Canadian Arctic are presented. Such environments can yield very large vertical temperature gradients during the winter months and are particularly dynamic micrometeorological environments. We found that sensible heat fluxes can exceed +100 W m-2 during the winter months, much larger than most regional estimates (~ 0 W m-2). In addition, large heat fluxes are shown to affect the characteristics of the near surface temperature inversion (temperature increases with height). The height, depth and strength of the characteristic wintertime inversion are shown to be influenced in cases where large surface fluxes were observed. Such findings are likely to have implications on the regional and planetary heat budget, general circulation models and larger scale weather processes, which most often omit local scale heat fluxes in their analyses and calculations. / February 2016

Recent field observations suggest that the radiative forcing of aerosol and clouds in the Arctic may be seasonally regulated by the oceanic emissions of the climatically-important biogenic trace gas dimethylsulfide (DMS). However, the validity of the proposed argument is challenged by the limited spatio-temporal coverage of these earlier studies in this difficult-to-access region. In particular, little is known about the pan-Arctic distribution of the oceanic DMS emissions, its temporal variability, and the impacts of sea-ice biogeochemistry on these emissions. In this dissertation, I investigated these unexplored subjects through numerical modelling. Using a one-dimensional (1-D) column modelling framework, I developed a coupled sea ice-ocean biogeochemical model and assessed the impacts of bottom-ice algae ecosystems on the underlying pelagic ecosystems and the associated production and emissions of DMS. The model was calibrated by time-series measurements of snow and melt-pond depth, ice thickness, bottom-ice and under-ice concentrations of chlorophyll-a and dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), and under-ice irradiance obtained on the first-year landfast sea ice in Resolute Passage during May-June of 2010. Many of the model parameters for the DMSP and DMS production and removal processes were derived from recent field measurements in the Arctic, which is advantageous over the previous Arctic-focused DMS model studies as their model parameters were based on the measurements in extra-polar regions. The impacts of sea-ice biogeochemistry on the DMS production in the underlying water column and its potential emissions into the overlying atmosphere were quantified through sensitivity experiments. To extend the study domain to the pan-Arctic, I implemented the sea-ice ecosystem and the coupled sea ice-pelagic DMS cycling components of the 1-D column model into a three-dimensional (3-D) regional modelling framework. A multi-decadal model simulation was performed over the period 1969-2015 using realistic atmospheric forcing and lateral boundary conditions. The results of the simulation were evaluated by direct comparisons with available data products and reported values based on field and satellite measurements and other model simulations. The decline of Arctic sea ice was successfully simulated by the model. The magnitude of the pan-Arctic sea-ice and pelagic annual primary production and their general spatial patterns were comparable to other model studies. The mean seasonal cycle and the spatial distribution of the model-based surface seawater DMS climatology within the pan-Arctic showed some similarities with in situ measurement- and satellite-based climatologies. However, at the same time, the comparison of the DMS climatologies was challenged by the bias in the measurement-based climatology, emphasizing the need to update this data product, which was created almost a decade ago, by incorporating data acquired during the recent field campaigns. The analysis of the modelled fluxes of DMS at the ice-sea and sea-air interfaces revealed different responses to the accelerated decline of sea ice over the recent decades (1996-2015). There was no trend in the pan-Arctic ice-to-sea DMS flux due to the counteracting effect of vertical thinning and horizontal shrinking of sea ice that drove ice algal production. In contrast, the pan-Arctic sea-to-air DMS flux showed a consistent increase (about 40 % over the last two decades) driven by the reduction of sea ice cover that promoted outgassing and biological productivity. This finding suggests that the climate warming in the Arctic causes an increase in DMS emissions, and encourages further exploration of the biological climate regulation in the Arctic. / Graduate

The primary goal of this thesis is to utilize acoustical radiation from the Arctic ice cover to infer the response of sea ice to environmental forcing, and to sense remotely the mechanical properties of the ice. The work makes use of two experiments in the Canadian arctic undertaken by the Ocean Acoustics Group of the Institute of Ocean Sciences, which resulted in an extensive body of acoustical and related environmental data. Cracking sounds originating from both first and multi-year ice fracturing processes are analyzed. Data used in this thesis also include sound made by artificial sources. The survey of in situ ice conditions by air photography and synthetic radar imaging, and a crack distribution map based on observations made with a 3-D hydrophone array, reveal, for the first time, a close correlation between thermal cracking events and ice type. It is shown that most of the thermal cracks occur in irregular multi-year ice where there are exposed, snow-free surfaces. The study shows that acoustical radiation from some cracks implies a slip-stick seismic movement over the faults, and some cracks tend to radiate more high frequency sound downwards rather than sideways. This phenomenon is most clearly apparent in sounds made by artificial sources. Another interesting finding from this study is that the sound of cracking ice does not always exhibit a vertical dipole radiation pattern, and some cracks due to thermal tension on smooth first year ice radiate more energy horizontally. The observations have motivated the development of various analytical models. These models allow the observed acoustical features to be related to the length and depth of a crack, the thickness of the ice cover and its Young's modulus. The models also show that maximum sound radiation from a crack is in the direction of external forcing. Finally, it is found that noise due to rubbing between ice floes exhibits a narrow band spectrum. This phenomenon is investigated and a linear model derived shows that the observed peak frequency is that of the first mode horizontal shear wave triggered by frictional effects at the ice floe edge. / Science, Faculty of / Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of / Graduate

This thesis addresses the problem of computationally estimating the motion of pack ice in sequential digital satellite images. The problem is posed in terms of linear filter theory and is solved by minimizing the error variance. The intuitive use of cross correlation and edge detection are shown to flow naturally from this approach. The theoretical framework also allows a geometric intuition into the action of the filter which is not possible through ad hoc methods. The noise corrupting the filtering process is investigated and the filter is implemented through both a first order method common to image processing, and a more sophisticated second order approach from computational vision. The class of imagery for which the filtering system is appropriate is discussed and the images chosen for the experiments are shown to be representative of this class. The experimental results reveal the power of the system in estimating ice motion, and some analysis of the derived motion is performed by comparison to a simple theory of wind-driven ice motion. The failings of the system are discussed and improvements are suggested. / Science, Faculty of / Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of / Graduate

The annual advance and retreat of sea ice in the Southern Ocean is recognised as one of the largest seasonal events on Earth. Such considerable physical changes have profound effects on the vertical structure of the water column, and hence controls the availability of both light and nutrients to phytoplankton. This means that in the region seasonally covered by sea ice (the SSIZ), the timing of the growth and decline (phenology) of phytoplankton is determined to a large degree by the dynamic interactions between ice, ocean and atmosphere. However, this region is simultaneously one of the most poorly observed in the global ocean, and one of the most complex. This has led to significant gaps in our understanding of how sea ice modulates the exchanges of heat and momentum between atmosphere and ocean, as well as the implications this has for phytoplankton phenology in the SSIZ. This study seeks to address these gaps by combining both model and observationallybased methods. The lack of observational data are directly tackled through an analysis of BGC-Argo float data sampling under ice. Such data reveal high growth rates in the presence of near full ice cover and deep mixed layers, conditions previously thought to prevent growth. These results suggest a revision of our current understanding of the drivers of under ice phytoplankton phenology, which should take into account the unique character of Antarctic sea ice and its effect on the under ice light environment. In addition, results obtained from several numerical process studies indicates that phytoplankton may have a higher affinity for low light conditions than previously thought. From a modelling perspective, an analysis and intercomparison of 11 Earth System Models (ESMs) and their representation of vertical mixing and phenology is presented. This revealed that misrepresentations in phenology where driven by model biases in sea ice cover and vertical mixing. That is, only models with either too much or too little ice cover were able to simulate phenology close to observations. Furthermore, a strong correlation between the location of the ice edge and the extent of vertical mixing suggested that ESMs overly dampen ocean-atmosphere fluxes as mediated by sea ice. This led to the development of a regional ocean-sea ice model of the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean, from which experiments enhancing both heat and momentum fluxes could be conducted. It was found that the model responded more uniformly to enhanced heat flux, generally deepening the mixed layer closer to observations in winter. On the other hand, the effects of enhanced momentum flux (implemented by increased air-ice drag) where more complex and spatially heterogeneous, with contrasting responses depending on the initial vertical density structure of the water column. Overall, the argument is made that the unique features of Antarctic sea ice should be included in models if we are to improve the representation of the SSIZ mixed layer, and hence phenology