北极斯瓦尔巴德群岛中部海域表层海水水质研究

掌握北极海水水质特征及地域分布等第一手数据对北极科考意义重大。该项研究工作是全国青少年北极科考子任务,于2017年夏季在北极斯瓦尔巴德群岛中部海域对表层海水水质特征、地域差异及相关控制因素进行了研究。选取了6个区域共40个采样点采集表层海水样本,从温度、酸碱度、电导率、溶解性总固体量、实际盐度和溶解氧饱和度等方面进行了水质特征测量分析,发现该海域6个区域在海水温度、电导率、溶解性总固体量、实际盐度及溶解氧饱和度等方面均有较大差异,而酸碱度差异不大: 北部冰区水温最低,溶解性总固体量最低,溶解氧含量较高; 西北部海湾溶解氧饱和度最高; 中部海峡溶解性总固体量最高,盐度和电导率最低; 南部海域水温最高,实际盐度和电导率最高,溶解氧饱和度最低; 东部沿海水温偏低。采样点地理位置、洋流情况、地形地貌等因素对表层海水水质均有影响。这些研究成果对补充我国在北极地区的第一手科考数据和进行深入的科考研究具有重要意义。     

Middle Pleistocene biota of the early Anglian ‘Arctic Fresh-water Bed’ at Ostend, Norfolk, UK

At three sites along the North Norfolk coast, freshwater sediments containing arctic plants have been reported to occur immediately beneath the glacial deposits. The sections at Mundesley and Beeston are no longer visible but a small exposure of this ‘Arctic Fresh-water Bed’ has recently been rediscovered at Ostend near Bacton. The fossils from this deposit are distinctly high boreal/arctic in character, indicating a small, possibly ephemeral, pool in a generally open landscape supporting some dwarf shrubs and conifers. Noteworthy records include three beetle species (Pterostichus brevicornis, P. middendorffi and Helophorus obscurellus) that today have their closest occurrences on either the Kanin or Kola peninsulas in arctic Russia. A Mutual Climatic Range reconstruction on the limited beetle fauna suggests that the mean temperatures of the warmest and coldest months were between 9 °C and 11 °C and between −36 °C and −10 °C, respectively. Other noteworthy occurrences include the aquatic pulmonate gastropod Gyraulus rossmaessleri (second and earliest British record), the ostracod Amplocypris tonnensis (earliest British record), ground squirrel (Spermophilus sp.) and the first record of arctic lemming (Dicrostonyx sp.) from the Cromer Forest-bed Formation (CF-bF). The ‘Arctic Fresh-water Bed’ has been assigned to the Bacton Member of the CF-bF and formed during the early Anglian, correlated with Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 12 of the deep sea record. The Ostend assemblage is therefore important in providing a glimpse of conditions that occurred during a major cold stage in the early Middle Pleistocene.     

Autumn snowfall and hydroclimatic variability during the past millennium inferred from the varved sediments of meromictic Lake A, northern Ellesmere Island, Canada

We examined the hydroclimatic signal in a record of annual lamina (varve) thickness from High Arctic Lake A, Ellesmere Island (83°00.00′N, 75°30.00′W). In this unglacierized catchment, nival melt is the dominant source for meltwater and transport of sediment to the lake, and autumn snowfall is highly influential on varve thickness through the amount of snow available for melt in the following year. For the period during which climatic data are available, varve thickness in Lake A was significantly correlated (r = 0.50, p < 0.01) with the cumulative snowfall from August to October (ASO) during the previous year and, to a lesser extent, ASO mean daily temperature (r = 0.39, p < 0.01) at Alert, Nunavut (175 km east). The varve thickness record, interpreted as a proxy record of ASO snowfall and, by extension, ASO temperature, indicated above-mean conditions during five periods of the past millennium, including most of the 20th century. These results corresponded well to other available high-resolution proxy climate records from the region, with some discrepancies prior to AD 1500 and during the period AD 1700-1900.     

Multi-proxy record of postglacial environmental change, south-central Melville Island, Northwest Territories, Canada

A sediment core from Lake BC01 (75°10.945′N, 111°55.181′W, 225 m asl) on south-central Melville Island, NWT, Canada, provides the first continuous postglacial environmental record for the region. Fossil pollen results indicate that the postglacial landscape was dominated by Poaceae and Salix, typical of a High Arctic plant community, whereas the Arctic herb Oxyria underwent a gradual increase during the late Holocene. Pollen-based climate reconstructions suggests the presence of a cold and dry period ~12,000 cal yr BP, possibly representing the Younger Dryas, followed by warmer and wetter conditions from 11,000 to 5000 cal yr BP, likely reflective of the Holocene Thermal Maximum. The climate then underwent a gradual cooling and drying from 5000 cal yr BP to the present, suggesting a late Holocene neoglacial cooling. Diatom preservation was poor prior to 5000 cal yr BP, when conditions were warmest, suggesting that diatom dissolution may in part be climatically controlled. Diatom concentrations were highest ~4500 cal yr BP but then decreased substantially by 3500 cal yr BP and remained low before recovering slightly in the 20th century. An abrupt warming occurred during the past 70 yr at the site, although the magnitude of this warming did not exceed that of the early Holocene.     

Transformations of runoff chemistry in the Arctic tundra,Northwest Territories,Canada

The transformation of snowmelt water chemical composition during melt, elution and runoff in an Arctic tundra basin is investigated. The chemistry of the water flowing along pathways from the surface of melting snow to the 95·5 ha basin outlet is related to relevant hydrological processes. In so doing, this paper offers physically based explanations for the transformation of major ion concentrations and loads of runoff water associated with snowmelt and rainfall along hydrological pathways to the stream outlet. Late‐lying snowdrifts were found to influence the ion chemistry in adjacent reaches of the stream channel greatly. As the initial pulse of ion‐rich melt water drained from the snowdrift and was conveyed through hillslope flowpaths, the concentrations of most ions increased, and the duration of the peak ionic pulse lengthened. Over the first 3 m of overland flow, the concentrations of all ions except for NO increased by one to two orders of magnitude, with the largest increase for K⁺, Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺. This was roughly equivalent to the concentration increase that resulted from percolation of relatively dilute water through 0·25 m of unsaturated soil. The Na⁺ and Cl^? were the dominant ions in snowmelt water, whereas Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺ dominated the hillslope runoff. On slopes below a large melting snowdrift, ion concentrations of melt water flowing in the saturated layer of the soil were very similar to the relatively dilute concentrations found in surface runoff. However, once the snowdrift ablated, ion concentrations of subsurface flow increased above parent melt‐water concentrations. Three seasonally characteristic hydrochemical regimes were identified in a stream reach adjacent to late‐lying snowdrifts. In the first two stages, the water chemistry in the stream channel strongly resembled the hillslope drainage water. In the third stage, in‐stream geochemical processes, including the weathering/ion exchange of Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺, were the main control of streamwater chemistry. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

北极拉普捷夫海海冰多年变化研究

拉普捷夫海是北冰洋的边缘海和冰源地,对北冰洋的海冰变化有重要影响。通过分析AMSR-E海冰密集度数据以及NECP-DOE的风场、温度场数据,结果表明拉普捷夫海海冰在2002—2011年经历了如下过程：重冰年(2002—2004)—过渡性质年份(2005—2006) —轻冰年(2007、2009—2011),即冰情由重向轻转变。研究结果也表明拉普捷夫海的冰情轻重与融冰期长短有较好的相关性,融冰期持续时间越短,冰情越重。4个参数,包括海冰距平指数、最小海冰覆盖率、积温、风驱动指数描述了拉普捷夫海的海冰多年变化过程。海冰距平指数是时间（3—11月）平均下的海冰覆盖率距平值,定量给出了各年冰情的轻重;最小海冰覆盖率是夏季海冰的极限情况,变化范围在0.45%—48.73%,发生时间为8月底至10月上旬。积温是上一个冬季气温积累对当年冰情的影响,结果表明积温是影响当年冰情轻重的主要因素。2008年的上一个冬季经历了异常低温,造成当年的异常重冰年。风驱动指数给出了风场对海冰覆盖率变化的短期影响,与同时期其他年份相比,2006年4月、2007年9月均出现了异常强北风,一定程度上造成了2006年融冰开始时间延后、2007年夏季最小海冰覆盖率的明显偏大。     

北极8种典型痕量金属及3种铂系贵金属浓度水平变化趋势及生态风险

痕量金属进入北极的途径包括洋流注入、大气传输、陆架河流、陆地径流以及海洋中的直接沉降。研究表明,北极区域介质中Pb、Hg与Cd、Zn、Cu水平随着工业化的发展呈现出不同的变化趋势,并且铂系贵金属在北极冰雪中被检测出反映了大范围的全球污染。对北极各海域表层沉积物中的痕量金属As、Cd、Cr、Cu、Hg、Pb、Zn进行生态风险评价发现:As、Cd、Cu很有可能已经对多数海域的海洋生物产生威胁;Hg、甲基汞(MeHg)、Zn在极地动物器官中已出现了食物链累积效应,相关的毒性数据目前还缺乏研究。     

Late Pleistocene ice export events into the Arctic Ocean from the M'Clure Strait Ice Stream, Canadian Arctic Archipelago

Rapidly-flowing sectors of an ice sheet (ice streams) can play an important role in abrupt climate change through the delivery of icebergs and meltwater and the subsequent disruption of ocean thermohaline circulation (e.g., the North Atlantic's Heinrich events). Recently, several cores have been raised from the Arctic Ocean which document the existence of massive ice export events during the Late Pleistocene and whose provenance has been linked to source regions in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. In this paper, satellite imagery is used to map glacial geomorphology in the vicinity of Victoria Island, Banks Island and Prince of Wales Island (Canadian Arctic) in order to reconstruct ice flow patterns in the highly complex glacial landscape. A total of 88 discrete flow-sets are mapped and of these, 13 exhibit the characteristic geomorphology of palaeo-ice streams (i.e., parallel patterns of large, highly elongated mega-scale glacial lineations forming a convergent flow pattern with abrupt lateral margins). Previous studies by other workers and cross-cutting relationships indicate that the majority of these ice streams are relatively young and operated during or immediately prior to deglaciation. Our new mapping, however, documents a large (> 700 km long; 110 km wide) and relatively old ice stream imprint centred in M'Clintock Channel and converging into Viscount Melville Sound. A trough mouth fan located on the continental shelf suggests that it extended along M'Clure Strait and was grounded at the shelf edge. The location of the M'Clure Strait Ice Stream exactly matches the source area of 4 (possibly 5) major ice export events recorded in core PS1230 raised from Fram Strait, the major ice exit for the Arctic Ocean. These ice export events occur at 12.9, 15.6, 22 and 29.8 ka (¹⁴C yr BP) and we argue that they record vigorous episodes of activity of the M'Clure Strait Ice Stream. The timing of these events is remarkably similar to the North Atlantic's Heinrich events and we take this as evidence that the M'Clure Strait Ice Stream was also activated around the same time. This may hold important implications for the cause of the North Atlantic's Heinrich events and hints at the possibility of a pan-ice sheet response.     

Sea ice thickness and concentration in Arctic obtaining from remote sensing images

1　Introduction TheArcticOceanisoneoftheimportantcoldregionsontheearth,whichcanaffect globalclimateandoceancirculationseriously.Itsinteractionwiththeglobalclimatesystem isrepresentedbyseaice,whichisthemainfeatureonthesurfaceoftheArcticOcean(Aa gaardandCarmack1989).First,seaiceplaysapivotalroleintheheatandmassbalance onthesurfaceoftheArcticOcean.Seaicenotonlyobstructstheheatexchangebetweenat mosphereandocean,butalsoreflectsmostsolarradiationbacktotheatmospherebecause ofitshighalbedo(Gre…