Observations of sea surface temperature and wave height were made from a large, manned spar buoy (R/P FLIP) ~100 km off the coast of Baja California. Surface temperature was measured with a radiation thermometer which viewed a disc on the surface 12 cm in diameter. The instrument responded to frequencies...
Observations were made of downward solar radiation as a function of depth during an experiment in the North Pacific (35°N, 155°W). The irradiance meter employed was sensitive to solar radiation of wavelength 400–1000 nm arriving from above at a horizontal surface. Because of selective absorption of the short and long...
Leads act as windows through which solar radiation enters the upper ocean. Studies of the heat budget and ice melt require accurate parameterization of the albedo. Results from summertime measurements of albedo over leads show that under cloudy conditions the average albedo is 0.066 with a standard deviation of 0.007....
High-resolution turbulence simulations are used to examine the importance of melt
pond geometry in setting pond growth rates and albedo. Modeling the circulation of
water in melt ponds using large-eddy simulation shows that both convective and windforced
conditions generate well-mixed ponds, suggesting that stratification is not a
significant factor in...
A thermistor chain was towed 1400 km through the eastern North Pacific subtropical frontal zone in
January 1980. The observations resolve surface layer temperature features with horizontal wavelengths of
0.2-200 km and vertical scales of 10-70 m. The dominant features, which have horizontal wavelengths of
10-100 km, amplitudes of 0.2°-1.0°C,...
This data report contains observations made from R/P FLIP as part of the first process-oriented NORPAX (North Pacific Experiment) experiment. The experiment was named POLE to indicate that the horizontal extent of sampling was small compared to the largest scale investigated in NORPAX.
The part of the experiment reported here...
A thermistor chain was moored below the pack ice from 50–150 m in the Arctic Ocean for five days in 1981. Oscillations in temperature are attributed to the vertical dispalcement of internal waves. The spectral shape of isotherm dispalcement is consistent with the Garrett-Munk model and other internal wave observations,...
Twelve days of microstructure measurements at the equator (140°W) in November 1984 showed a
surprisingly strong effect of both the daily cycle of solar heating and wind on mixing in the upper ocean.
Because of limited variations in atmospheric forcing and currents during the experiment, processes in the
daily mixing...
A melt pond model is presented that predicts pond size and depth changes, given an
initial ice thickness field and representative surface fluxes. The model is based on the
assumption that as sea ice melts, fresh water builds up in the ice pore space and eventually
saturates the ice. Under...
Ice-ocean heat exchange in polar leads was examined using a large-eddy simulation
model coupled to a slab ice model. Simulations were performed using an idealized square
domain for a range of lead sizes, surface wind stress (0.05–0.1 N/m²), and lead
temperature/salinity profiles. Particular emphasis was placed on understanding the role...