The major objective of this project is to retrieve and redeploy oceanographic moorings from our 2015 campaign. In addition, we will collect oceanographic data in the Station North region. Relatively warm intermediate North Atlantic waters can be found at intermediate depths off the NE Greenland continental slope. These waters might penetrate along the submarine troughs and valleys into the shallow coastal areas where vertical mixing processes could initiate heat transport to the lower surface of sea ice. The impact of this heat on the sea-ice thermodynamic growth, brine rejection, buoyancy-driven mixing and the gas exchange will be studied. The tidewater glaciers might be even ablated directly at intermediate depths depending on local bathymetry that is currently unknown. Both short-term mooring deployments in the vicinity of the glacier-ocean contact zone, and long-term mooring observation under the land fast ice are selected as project priorities.

The project will take place in April 2016.

Link to Isaaffik website

PI: Søren Rysgaard, Igor Dmitrenko

Participants: Soren Rysgaard, Igor Dmitrenko, Sergei Kirillov, David Babb, Cris Seaton (CEOS)