Automatic Profiling System for Underice Measurements

The article is devoted to the development of an autonomous profiling system for measuring the aquatic environment under ice. The system moves up and down in the water column along a cable with a load at the lower end, which is lowered into a lane in the ice. The system carrier is designed for transporting an acoustic Doppler current profiler and a salinity, temperature, and pressure probe. The system will be useful for long-term measurements of vertical profiles of the current speed and marine environment parameters, as well as ice draft. The article describes in detail the structure and operation of the system. The hydraulic scheme of the carrier buoyancy system is presented.

     

Interdecadal Variations of ENSO Signals and Annual Cycles Revealed by Wavelet Analysis

Interdecadal variations of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) signals and annual cycles appearing in the sea surface temperature (SST) and zonal wind in the equatorial Pacific during 1950–1997 are studied by wavelet, empirical orthogonal function (EOF) and singular value decomposition (SVD) analyses. The typical timescale of ENSO is estimated to be about 40 months before the late 1970s and 48–52 months after that; the timescale increased by about 10 months. The spatial pattern of the ENSO signal appearing in SST also changed in the 1970s; before that, the area of strong signal spread over the extratropical regions, while it is confined near the equator after that. The center of the strongest signal shifted from the central and eastern equatorial Pacific to the South American coast at that time. These SST fluctuations near the equator are associated with fluctuations of zonal wiond, whose spatial pattern also shifted considerably eastward at that time. In the eastern equatorial Pacific, amplitudes of annual cycles of SST are weak in El Niño years and strong in La Niña years. This relation is not clear, however, in the 1980s and 1990s.     

On the nature of short-period oscillations of the main Black Sea pycnocline, submesoscale eddies, and response of the marine environment to the catastrophic shower of 2012

Field studies performed at the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences (SIO RAS), Black Sea hydrophysical polygon in 2012 are illustrated. The variations in the vertical distribution of the hydrophysical characteristics (water temperature, salinity, and density, as well as current velocity) in the upper 200-m layer of the Black Sea above the continental slope in the cold season, obtained using an Aqualog autonomous profiler on a moored buoy station, have been analyzed. It has been established that the position of the permanent pycno-halocline and the hydrosulphuric zone upper boundary intensively oscillate with a characteristic period of 5–10 days. These oscillations cause short-period variations in the thickness of the oxigenated layer by 20–40 m, which reaches one-third of the total thickness of the layer. Measurements performed with autonomous stations (bottom ADCP, thermochain) at the experimental subsatellite polygon in the Gelendzhik coastal zone, as well as meteorological, ship, and satellite data obtained during the catastrophic rains and flooding on July 6–7, 2012, and afterward, have been simultaneously analyzed. It has been established that a catastrophic flow of turbid fresh water into the sea caused the formation of a belt of freshened (by 1.0–2.7 psu) less dense water with a high suspension concentration on the shelf and the upper continental slope. This water formed a quasi-geostrophic northwestward along-shore current, the velocity of which reached 40–50 cm/s. Therefore, the freshened and turbid water mostly escaped from the Gelendzhik region northwestward for two days after the flood, and the remaining water became free of suspension owing to its settlement during approximately the same period. The fields of the current velocity and suspension concentration in a submesoscale cyclonic eddy, identified on the satellite image, were measured at the hydrophysical polygon. It has been established that a high (when compared to the background values) suspension concentration in the surface-water layer in an eddy is related to intense upwelling at the eddy center and the rising of suspension (apparently phytoplankton) from the thermocline layer, where the suspension concentration is maximal.     

Impact of the desorption energy of atomic oxygen on the chemical evolution in star-forming regions

The impact of a recently measured values of the desorption energy of oxygen released from the surface of silicate dust particles on the results of numerical simulations is analyzed. The chemical evolution of the interstellar medium under conditions corresponding to those in a cold, dark cloud is considered, together with the collapse of a translucent cloud into a dark cloud. Astrochemical modeling methods are used to show that, overall, there were no substantial changes in the chemical evolution under the conditions for the selected models for these objects, but the formation of somemolecules is sensitive to the change from the traditionally adopted oxygen desorption energy (800 K) to the new value (1850 K). The characteristics of the formation of such molecules are analyzed.     

Multidisciplinary experiment on studying short-period variability of the sedimentary process in the northeastern part of the Black Sea

The principal aim of this work is to reveal the regularities of short-period synoptic variability of vertical flows and the composition of settling sedimentary material, to obtain information on the quantitative characteristics of the processes that influence sound-scattering layers in the water layer above the continental slope behind the shelf edge in the northeastern part of the Black Sea. The results were obtained due to improvement of the equipment and the procedures for performing sea experiments on studying physicogeological, biological, and hydrophysical processes in the upper illuminated layer of phytoplankton development.     

Space monitoring of pollution of the Russian sector of the Azov-Black Sea basin in 2008

Technology of space monitoring of the state of water bodies and results of its application for studying the Azov-Black Sea basin in 2008 are considered. Based on the processing of more than 1000 satellite images and ground-based station data, basic characteristic features of the marine environmental pollution are determined which are connected with suspension dispersion, phytoplankton and algae growth, ship dumping of oil products (more than 62 oil patches were revealed), etc. The influence of dynamic structures in the coastal zone on the spatiotemporal distribution of the sea surface pollution parameters, and their contribution to mechanisms of water purification and self-purification are estimated. In particular, new data are obtained about the evolution of “Caucasian anticyclones,” about the dates of intensification of the Main Black Sea Current, and about features of coccolithophore bloom in the abyssal area of the Black Sea, etc.     

Subsatellite polygon for studying hydrophysical processes in the Black Sea shelf-slope zone

The first data on the creation of the subsatellite polygon on the Black Sea shelf and continental slope in the Gelendzhik area (designed in order to permanently monitor the state of the aquatic environment and biota) and the plans for maintaining and developing this polygon are presented. The autonomous measuring systems of the polygon in the composition of bottom stations with acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCP), Aqualog robotic profilers, and thermo-chains on moored buoy stations should make it possible to regularly obtain hydrophysical, hydrochemical, and bio-optical data with a high spatial-time resolution and transmit these data to the coastal center on a real-time basis. These field data should be used to study the characteristics and formation mechanisms of the marine environment and biota variability, as well as the water-exchange processes in the shelf-deep basin system, ocean-atmosphere coupling, and many other processes. These data are used to calibrate the satellite measurements and verify the water circulation numerical simulation. It is assumed to use these data in order to warn about the hazardous natural phenomena and control the marine environment state and its variation under the action of anthropogenic and natural factors, including climatic trends. It is planned to use the polygon subsatellite monitoring methods and equipment in other coastal areas, including other Black Sea sectors, in order to create a unified system for monitoring the Black Sea shelf-slope zone.     

Submesoscale eddies at the caucasus Black Sea shelf and the mechanisms of their generation

The results of observations of submesoscale eddies (with a diameter of 2–8 km) on the narrow Black Sea shelf are presented. These observations were carried out in the Gelendzhik region in the autumn seasons of 2007–2008 using traditional and new methods of hydrophysical investigations. The mechanisms of generation of such eddies are discussed.     

Vertical structure of currents in the upper part of the continental slope of the Black Sea in the Region of Gelendzhik

The results of a joint analysis of the synchronous-profile ensemble of density and current velocity measured using the autonomous moored Aqualog profiler at the Gelendzhik experimental site of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology in 2013–2015 are presented. The distribution of probability density of current velocity by directions reveals the presence of two well-pronounced maxima in the southeastern and northwestern sectors at all depths of measurements, which confirms the bimodal direction of the currents in the study site. We consider in detail the vertical structure of the density stratification and the current velocity corresponding to the modes determined from the maximum of the probability density distribution of the current velocity by directions. The averaged profiles of the kinetic, potential, and total energies are given. The results of isopycnic averaging over the entire ensemble of profiles indicate that possible self-similarity exists in the dependence of the vertical distribution of density and kinetic energy.