Winter ice experiment Beaufort Sea (Wiebs)—data collection

Abstract

Under a joint government/industry program called the Winter Ice Experiment Beaufort Sea (WIEBS), during November and December 1979 and April 1981, two data sets were acquired in the southeastern Beaufort Sea, for the purpose of developing and testing a dynamical/thermodynamical sea ice model. The data sets included meteorological, oceanographic, and sea ice parameters. Also, on a limited scale, ground truthing data were obtained. This paper deals with the data collection aspects of the experiment and their archival.     

Accurate GPS measurement of the location and orientation of a floating platform

Abstract

This article describes the design and initial tests of the GPS portion of a system for making seafloor geodesy measurements. In the planned system, GPS antennas on a floating platform will be used to measure the location of an acoustic transducer, attached below the platform, which interrogates an array of transponders on the seafloor. Since the GPS antennas are necessarily some distance above the transducer, a short‐baseline GPS interferometer consisting of three antennas is used to measure the platform's orientation.

A preliminary test of several crucial elements of the system was performed at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) in December 1989. The test involved a fixed antenna on the pier and a second antenna floating on a buoy about 80 m away. GPS measurements of the vertical component of this baseline, analyzed independently by two groups using different software, agree with each other and with an independent measurement within a centimeter.

The first test of an integrated GPS/acoustic system took place in the Santa Cruz Basin off the coast of southern California in May 1990. In this test a much larger buoy, designed and built at SIO, was equipped with three GPS antennas and an acoustic transducer that interrogated a transponder on the ocean floor. Preliminary analysis indicates that the horizontal position of the transponder can be determined with a precision of about a centimeter. Further analysis will be required to investigate the magnitude of systematic errors.     

胶州湾主要污染源削减排污量研究

采用数值方法模拟了胶州湾潮流场并预测了胶州湾8个主要污染源的COD扩散过程。通过对比个别污染源削减排量前后胶州湾的水质状况,分析了胶州湾主要污染源削减排量的必要性,从而为胶州湾未来的环境保护和水质恢复提供一定的导向作用。     

Small-scale, high-precision and high-accuracy determination of Poisson’s ratios in cohesive marine sediments

Poisson’s ratio (static) appears as a parameter in models of soft-sediment geomechanical processes such as gas bubble formation and bioturbation, and in a number of practical applications, including acoustic imaging, but is rarely measured in soft near-surface (upper 20 cm) marine sediments. A new uniaxial apparatus was developed to assess Poisson’s ratios of cylindrical samples of soft cohesive sediments under finite-strain, unconfined, undrained conditions. No constraining membrane around the sample is necessary in the instrument. By monitoring the fluid level in a capillary, changes in sample volume can be determined to high precision (reproducibility). Measurements on reference materials, i.e., gelatine and polyurethane, also indicate high accuracy (veracity). For natural sediments from Nova Scotia, Canada, Poisson’s ratios range from 0.4951 to 0.5 with no indication of anisotropy; therefore, such sediments act as incompressible solids to short-term/small-magnitude stresses, as occur during bubble formation and infaunal movement.     

Authigenic carbonate mineral formation in the Pagassitikos palaeolake during the latest Pleistocene, central Greece

The Pagassitikos Gulf in Greece is a semi-enclosed bay with a maximum depth of 102 m. According to the present-day bathymetric configuration and the sea level during the latest Pleistocene, the gulf would have been isolated from the open sea, forming a palaeolake since ~32 cal. ka b.p. Sediment core B-4 was recovered from the deepest sector of the gulf and revealed evidence of a totally different depositional environment in the lowest part of the core: this contained light grey-coloured sediments, contrasting strongly with overlying olive grey muds. Multi-proxy analyses showed the predominance of carbonate minerals (aragonite, dolomite and calcite) and gypsum in the lowest part of the core. Carbonate mineral deposition can be attributed to autochthonous precipitation that took place in a saline palaeolake with high evaporation rates during the last glacial–early deglacial period; the lowest core sample to be AMS ¹⁴C dated provided an age of 19.53 cal. ka b.p. The palaeolake was presumably reconnected to the open sea at ~13.2 cal. ka b.p. during the last sea-level rise, marking the commencement of marine sedimentation characterised by the predominance of terrigenous aluminosilicates and fairly constant depositional conditions lasting up to the present day.     

Lagrangian analysis of mixing and transport of water masses in the marine bays

The Lagrangian approach to studying the mixing and transport of a passive admixture in marine bays and gulfs based on the methods of a theory of dynamic systems is developed. This approach is employed to investigate the lateral mixing and transport of waters in the Peter the Great Bay, Japan Sea, using a velocity field of the predictive numerical hydrodynamic circulation model of a synoptic scale. It is shown that the Lagrangian characteristics, such as the maximum accumulated Lyapunov exponent, the time of particle stay in the bay, particle relative displacements, and the number of cyclonic and anticyclonic rotations, allow us to describe the movement of water masses, the character of mixing, and chaos in the Bay. In integrating the advection equations forward and backward in time, maps showing a number of particle arrivals to different regions of the Bay make it possible to establish corridors through which particles leave and enter the Bay.     

Currents in the Drake Passage by the observations in October–November of 2011

The currents in the Drake Passage are studied from the ADCP and CTD data acquired in a section across the Drake Passage in October-November of 2011 and from the satellite altimeter data. A complicated pattern of currents including eight jets of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) and a system of slope and abyssal currents was found. The most interesting result is the discovery of several cyclonic and anticyclonic mesoscale eddies confined to the abyss. Some reasons explaining the generation of such eddies by the meandering of the ACC jets in the upper ocean layer are presented.     

Breeding in the freshwater crayfish paranephrops planifrons white

The breeding cycle of female Paranephrops planifrons is described. The incubation of eggs and young takes place between April and December and covers about 25–26 weeks. The winter population contains some apparently adult females which do not breed. The number of eggs laid increases with the size of the parent, and in the population studied varied from some 20 to 30 eggs at 17 mm carapace length to 150 eggs at 30 mm carapace length. After hatching the young pass through two moults while still attached to the parent.     

The comparative limnology of some New Zealand lakes

The morphometry, environmental conditions, and some physical and chemical data are given for twenty‐four New Zealand lakes: seven are in the southern part of the South Island, the others, excluding Lakes Waikaremoana and Waikareiti, are in the “thermal region” of the central North Island. These lakes form two separate groups and include the largest and deepest lakes in both islands.

The lakes in which stratification was established were found to belong to the class known as warm monomictic Two lakes, Rotorua and Rotoehu, were found to be homothermous throughout the year. Open water surface temperatures did not exceed 23°c in the North Island lakes or 19°c in the South Island, and minimum temperatures recorded were 7°c in the northern lakes and 5°c in the southern. In deep lakes the range of temperature was much less: Wakutipu had a range of 16–8.85°c.

The disappearance level of a Secchi disc varied from 18 m (Lake Taupo) to 0.8 m (Lake Rotongaio). The transparency of the water in the glacial and volcanic lakes was comparable to that of similar lakes in other parts of the world.

It was found that total ions, measured by the ion‐exchange resins reached high concentrations in lakes fed by thermal waters: Rotomahana 14.32m.e./l. By contrast Tikitapu, a seepage lake, had the low concentration of. 0.28m.e./l, and Wakatipu, a glacial fed lake, a concentration of O.58m.e./1. The pH range was 8.1–5.8, the lowest value being in Tikitapu, a volcanic lake. Slightly lower pH values were recorded in the bottom waters of lakes when stratified. Lakes were usually supersaturated with oxygen at the surface, and only a few small lakes showed a hypolimnial deficiency. Silica and phosphate were found in high concentrations in some thermal lakes but nitrogen in the forms measured, was found to be low.     

Role of mean circulation,tides, and waves in the transport of bottom sediment on the New Zealand continental shelf

Evaluation of velocity data on water movements over the New Zealand continental shelf has revealed that the mean circulation by itself is too slow to induce transport of bottom sediments. Tides generally have higher velocities, but are still not the main transporting agent except in the tide‐dominated Cook and Foveaux. Straits. Waves have the potential to stir sediments on the inner and middle shelf (less than about 70 m deep) during annual storms, and probably down to 130 m depth during the maximum 25‐y storm.

For sediment transport to take place, energies of at least two of the major water movements would have to complement one another. Optimum conditions for transport probably occur during storm periods when wave‐suspended sediment is readily moved by tides and the mean circulation.

The direction of transport is mainly along the continental shelf and is largely in response to prevailing weather patterns coincident with the direction of the mean circulation and strongly reinforced by the appropriate phase of the tide.