Sea Aggies in the Arctic
Rainer Amon's Arctic Research
TAMUG researcher Rainer Amon and
his students, Amanda Rinehart and Sally Walker participated
in an international research expedition “Beringia 2005”
during the summer. The expedition was organized by the
Swedish Polar Research Secretariat and consisted of several
ice breaker cruises. The TAMUG team participated in leg 1
from Gothenburg, Sweden along the Northwest Passage through
the Canadian Archipelago to Alaska, and in leg 3 from Alaska
across the Arctic Ocean to Spitzbergen via the North Pole.
The expedition departed from Galveston in early July to join
a company of 40 scientists from around the world and ended
on October 11th in Gothenburg. The main focus of those
research cruises was to study the water mass distribution in
the Arctic Ocean and changes in these distributions over the
last 15 years. During the transarctic section of the
expedition the Swedish icebreaker Oden was joined by the
U.S. Coast Guard ice breaker Healy to begin their journey
across the North Pole. Interestingly, TAMUG former student
Erik Quiroz ’93, who is now a hydrographic technician at the
University of Southern Mississippi, joined the expedition to
run the oxygen and nutrient analysis for SCRIPS Institute of
Oceanography.
The Arctic Ocean plays a key role in the global climate
system because of its ties to the North Atlantic deep water
formation. The TAMUG researchers focused on dissolved
organic matter and worked to see how it can be used to trace
water masses and water mass modifications in the Arctic
Ocean. The Arctic Ocean is characterized by a halocline
layer which seems to spread across the entire Canada Basin
like a “flying carpet” separating the warmer Atlantic water
from the cold surface water. Without this layer, the warmer
waters of the Atlantic would warm the cold surface water and
lead to rapid disappearance of the sea ice. During past
research Amon and colleagues have found traces of river
water in this halocline layer, leading them to hypothesize
that sea ice formation on the extended Arctic shelves (which
receive significant river discharge) might play a role in
halocline formation. Results from this expedition will help
to answer many questions.
“I am glad to say that the data and samples we have
collected carry great promise to further our understanding
of how the Arctic system works so we can make predictions of
how it will be affected by outside factors such as global
warming,” stated Dr. Amon.
Another connection of the Arctic Ocean to the global climate
system has to do with the global freshwater balance.
Increasing freshwater input have decreased the salinity
levels in the Artic Ocean causing surface waters to become
“lighter” and therefore do not “sink” as easily into the
North Atlantic deep waters. The sinking of high northern
latitude surface waters is the process called the North
Atlantic deep water formation and is believed to be the
engine for global thermohaline circulation which is the
southern flow of colder North Atlantic deep waters and the
northward flow of warmer tropical surface waters known as
the Gulf Stream. Amon states that the fresher water (and
decreased density as a result) could have significant
consequences for the global heat exchange and global climate
patterns.
