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GOMO-Funded Project

Augmented Seasonal Ice Mass Balance Buoys

Photo Credit: Evegnii Salganik
  • Principal Investigator(s):
    • Don Perovich
    • Renee Y. Brown
  • Project Institution(s): Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth
  • Fiscal Year: 2024
  • Award Period:
    10/01/2023 - 09/30/2024
This project received funding from the following: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act).

Seasonal Ice Mass Balance buoys (SIMB) observe changes in the mass balance of sea ice using autonomous buoy data collection. Data from these buoys provide a time series on snow accumulation, ice growth and melt, internal ice temperature fields, position, barometric pressure, and temporally averaged estimates of ocean heat flux. The primary goal of this work is to continue to contribute to the design and establishment of an effective Arctic Observing Network (AON) by deploying more buoys for the SIMB Network. Specifically, this project will deploy two new SIMB buoys each year with additional sensors that can measure the spatial variability of snow depth, upper ocean salinity, and transmitted solar radiation.

Milestones

  1. Year 1: Two SIMB buoys were acquired, following the project’s pattern of obtaining two buoys per year, with one SIMB enhanced by an additional sensor package. Deployment sites for these buoys were chosen in collaboration with members of the sea ice modeling community.
  2. Year 2: Deployments in two undersampled areas have been arranged along the Transpolar Drift Current and “Last Ice” area. This work will be performed in collaboration with the Alfred Wegener Institute.