Cycladophora davisiana (Radiolaria) in the Okhotsk Sea: A key for reconstructing glacial ocean conditions

Cycladophora davisiana, a radiolarian species dwelling at mesopelagic depths, is known as a representative glacial fauna due to its unique distribution during glacial periods. In the present ocean, abundant production of C. davisiana is only observed in the Okhotsk Sea, indicating an adaptation of C. davisiana for seasonal sea-ice covered conditions. We found pronounced abundant production of C. davisiana during the early to middle Holocene in the Okhotsk Sea, suggesting more favorable conditions for C. davisiana than the present Okhotsk Sea. In order to clarify the reason, oceanographic conditions during the Holocene were reconstructed based on biomarkers, lithogenic grains including ice-rafted debris (IRD), biogenic opal, and total organic carbon (TOC) in two sediment cores from the Okhotsk Sea. These indicators suggest that the pronounced C. davisiana production may be attributed to: 1) a supply to mesopelagic depths under intensified stratification of fine organic particles derived from coccolithophorids, bacteria, and detrital materials; and 2) cold, well-ventilated intermediate water formation.     

Northward transport of pacific summer water along the Northwind Ridge in the Western Arctic Ocean

The recent sea-ice reduction in the Arctic Ocean is not spatially uniform, but is disproportionally large around the Northwind Ridge and Chukchi Plateau compared to elsewhere in the Canada Basin. In the Northwind Ridge region, Pacific Summer Water (PSW) delivered from the Bering Sea occupies the subsurface layer. The spatial distribution of warm PSW shows a quite similar pattern to the recent ice retreat, suggesting the influence of PSW on the sea-ice reduction. To understand the regionality of the recent ice retreat, we examine the dynamics and timing of the delivery of the PSW into this region. Here, we adopt a two-layer linearized potential vorticity equation to investigate the behavior of Rossby waves in the presence of a topographic discontinuity in the high latitude ocean. The analytical results show a quite different structure from those of mid-latitude basins due to the small value of β. Incident barotropic waves excited by the sea-ice motion with large annual variation can be scattered into both barotropic and baroclinic modes at the discontinuity. Since the scattered baroclinic Rossby wave with annual frequency cannot propagate freely, a strong baroclinic current near the topographic discontinuity is established. The seasonal variation of current near the topographic discontinuity would cause a kind of selective switching system for shelf water transport into the basin. In our simple analytical model, the enhanced northward transport of summer water and reduced northward transport of winter water are well demonstrated. The present study indicates that these basic dynamics imply that a strengthening of the surface forcing during winter in the Canada Basin could cause sea-ice reduction in the Western Arctic through the changes of underlying Pacific Summer Water.     

南极海冰的年际变化对中国东部夏季降水的影响

根据Hadley中心提供的1969—1998年的南极海冰再分析资料和其它多种观测资料，分析了南极海冰的年际和季节变化，指出南极海冰具有显著的年际变化，但与ENSO的关系则较为复杂。南极海冰维持了南半球高纬地区大气环流的季节持续性，因而对短期气候预测有较大帮助。相关分析和时间序列分析均证实中国东部夏季降水与南极海冰的年际变化有关，当北半球春夏季南极海冰增多时，华北降水增多而华南和东北降水减少。研究还表明，此种雨型分布与南极海冰变化引起的东亚夏季风环流变化有关。     

A Case Study Of An On-Ice Air Flow Over The Arctic Marginal Sea-Ice Zone

A case study of warm air advection over the Arctic marginalsea-ice zone is presented, based on aircraft observations with direct flux measurements carriedout in early spring, 1998. A shallow atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) was observed, which wasgradually cooling with distance downwind of the ice edge. This process was mainly connected with astrong stable stratification and downward turbulent heat fluxes of about 10–20 W m^-2, but wasalso due to radiative cooling. Two mesoscale models, one hydrostatic and the other non-hydrostatic,having different turbulence closures, were applied. Despite these fundamental differences betweenthe models, the results of both agreed well with the observed data. Various closure assumptions had amore crucial influence on the results than the differences between the models.Such an assumption was, for example,the parameterization of the surface roughness for momentum (z₀) and heat (z_T). This stronglyaffected the wind and temperature fields not only close to the surface but also within and abovethe temperature inversion layer. The best results were achieved using a formulation for z₀ that took intoaccount the form drag effect of sea-ice ridges together withz_T = 0.1z₀. The stability within theelevated inversion strongly depended on the minimum eddy diffusivity K_min. A simple ad hocparameterization seems applicable, where K_min is calculated as 0.005 timesthe neutral eddy diffusivity. Although the longwave radiative cooling was largest within the ABL, theapplication of a radiation scheme was less important there than above the ABL. This was related to theinteraction of the turbulent and radiative fluxes. To reproduce the strong inversion, it wasnecessary to use vertical and horizontal resolutions higher than those applied in most regional andlarge-scale atmospheric models.     

Arctic sea-ice motion and its relation to pressure field

Daily Arctic sea-ice motion maps during the winter seasons (December–March) from December 1988 to March 2003 derived from NSCAT, QuikSCAT, SSM/I, and AMSRE data by a wavelet analysis method have been merged with those derived from buoy data. These merged sea-ice motion data have been used to study the circulation regimes and winter-to-winter variability of Arctic sea-ice motion. The relation between sea-ice motion and the pressure field in the Arctic Ocean was also studied by applying Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to the monthly merged sea-ice motion data and the monthly pressure field data from IABP. The mean Arctic sea-ice motion map of the 15 winter seasons has two distinct features: the Beaufort Gyre and a cyclonic circulation system in the Eurasian Basin, which moves ice from the Laptev Sea to Fram Strait. The strengths and sizes of the two features change from one winter season to another. Seasons with a strong or normal Beaufort Gyre alternate with seasons with a weak or no Beaufort Gyre every one to three seasons. The principal components of the first two modes of PCA of the monthly sea-ice motion are closely correlated with their counterparts of the monthly pressure field in the Arctic Ocean. The mode-one components of these two anomalies alternate between anticyclonic and cyclonic circulation systems. The correlation between Arctic Oscillation indexes and the principal components of the first mode of PCA of the monthly Arctic sea-ice motion is low but statistically significant.     

保持局域特征的多源海冰图像融合与分类

本文提出一种保持局域特征的多源海冰图像融合方法,并在此基础上进行海冰分类。本文提出的多源海冰图像融合方法包括保持空间局域融合和保持特征局域融合两方面。首先,通过学习得到投影矩阵和相似矩阵。投影矩阵将多源像素进行投影变换,得到保留像素空间局域特性的融合向量。相似矩阵度量像素特征间的相似性,通过拉普拉斯特征分解,得到保留像素特征局域相似性的融合向量。然后,将空间融合向量和特征融合向量进行像素综合,得到融合图像。在此基础上,本文设计一种滑动集成分类方法进行融合图像像素分类。提出的分类方法利用滑动集成的特点,在分类时增强刻画了海冰局域特性。由于本文的保持局域融合框架不仅刻画了海冰在物理空间中的邻接关系,而且考虑不同海冰类型的特征关系,因此其在多源图像（多光谱和合成孔径雷达（SAR）图像）的海冰分类任务中表现优异。实验结果表明本文提出的基于保持局域特征融合的多源海冰图像分类方法有效提升了海冰分类精度。     

Holocene History of the Bering Sea Bowhead Whale (Balaena mysticetus) in Its Beaufort Sea Summer Grounds off Southwestern Victoria Island, Western Canadian Arctic

The fossil remains of 43 bowhead whales were mapped on the raised beaches of western Wollaston Peninsula, Victoria Island, Canadian Arctic, near the historic summer range limit of the Bering Sea stock in the Beaufort Sea. The elevations and radiocarbon ages of the remains demonstrate that the bowhead ranged commonly into the region following the submergence of Bering Strait at ca. 10,000 ¹⁴C yr B.P. until ca. 8500 ¹⁴C yr B.P. During the same interval, bowheads ranged widely from the Beaufort Sea to Baffin Bay. Subsequently, no whales reached Wollaston Peninsula until ca. 1500 ¹⁴C yr B.P. Late Holocene populations evidently were small, or occupations were brief, in comparison to those of the early Holocene. Although the late Holocene recurrence may relate to the expansion of pioneering Thule whalers eastward from Alaska, there are few Thule sites and limited evidence of Thule whaling in the area surveyed to support this suggestion.     

利用三维GPR探测北极夏季海冰厚度及下表面形态特征分析

海冰在全球气候系统中扮演着重要角色。在中国第二次北极科学考察中，使用3D雷达探测结合冰钻进行海冰测量。雷达剖面上可清楚识别冰-水界面，与冰钻测量结果较好地吻合。雷达3D图像清晰显示了冰底界面在3D方向的起伏变化以及冰内构造的空间展布情况。对三维探测区域内海冰厚度统计显示，所测冰盘的平均厚度为4．15m，较厚的区域位于左下角，最大厚度约为6．4m，较薄的区域是在中央和左上角区域，最小的厚度小于3．0m。经过进一步计算可提供如海冰上下表面面积、海冰体积等参数，为遥感和数值模拟提供地面校核数据，也为海冰形成机制和动力作用过程研究提供佐证和依据。     

‘Surface Drag in the Arctic Marginal Sea-ice Zone: A Comparison of Different Parameterisation Concepts’

Two parameterisation schemes for the turbulent surface fluxes and drag coefficients over the Arctic marginal sea-ice zone (MIZ) are (further) developed, and their results are compared with each other. Although the schemes are based on different principles (flux averaging and parameter averaging), the resulting drag coefficients differ only slightly in the case of neutral and stable stratification. For unstable stratification and sea-ice conditions being typical for the north-eastern Fram Strait, the drag coefficients resulting from the parameter-averaging concept are 5–10% larger than those of the flux-averaging concept. At a sea-ice concentration of 45%, the parameter-averaging method overestimates the heat fluxes by a factor of 1.2. An inclusion in the schemes of form drag caused by floe edges and ridges has a much larger effect on the drag coefficient, and on the momentum fluxes, than the choice between the parameter-averaging or flux-averaging methods. Based on sensitivity studies with the flux-averaging scheme, a simple formula for the effective drag coefficient above the Arctic MIZ is derived. It reduces the computational costs of the more complex parameterisations and could also be used in larger scale models. With this simple formula, the effective drag coefficient can be calculated as a function of the sea-ice concentration and skin drag coefficients for water and ice floes. The results obtained with this parameterisation differ only slightly from those using the more complex schemes. Finally, it is shown that in the MIZ, drag coefficients for sea-ice models may differ significantly from the effective drag coefficients used in atmospheric models.     

渤海海冰微波散射特性研究

Microwave remote sensing has become the primary means for sea-ice research, and has been supported by a great deal of field experiments and theoretical studies regarding sea-ice microwave scattering. However, these studies have been barely carried in the Bohai Sea. The sea-ice microwave scattering mechanism was first developed for the thin sea ice with slight roughness in the Bohai Sea in the winter of 2012, and included the backscattering coefficients which were measured on the different conditions of three bands(L, C and X), two polarizations(HH and VV), and incident angles of 20° to 60°, using a ground-based scatterometer and the synchronous physical parameters of the sea-ice temperature, density, thickness, salinity, and so on. The theoretical model of the sea-ice electromagnetic scattering is obtained based on these physical parameters. The research regarding the sea-ice microwave scattering mechanism is carried out through two means, which includes the comparison between the field microwave scattering data and the simulation results of the theoretical model, as well as the feature analysis of the four components of the sea-ice electromagnetic scattering. It is revealed that the sea-ice microwave scattering data and the theoretical simulation results vary in the same trend with the incident angles. Also, there is a visible variant in the sensitivity of every component to the different bands.For example, the C and X bands are sensitive to the top surface, the X band is sensitive to the scatterers, and the L and C bands are sensitive to the bottom surface, and so on. It is suggested that the features of the sea-ice surfaces and scatterers can be retrieved by the further research in the future. This experiment can provide an experimental and theoretical foundation for research regarding the sea-ice microwave scattering characteristics in the Bohai Sea.