Collaborative Research: Advancing knowledge of Arctic sea ice interactions with tropopause polar vortices and Arctic cyclones

合作研究：增进对北极海冰与对流层顶极涡和北极气旋相互作用的了解

• 批准号: 2141538
• 负责人: Cecilia Bitz
• 金额: $ 40.12万
• 依托单位: University of Washington
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-05-15 至 2025-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2141538&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Advancing; knowledge; Arctic

In recent decades Arctic sea ice has become more mobile and thinner, leading to an increasingly important role of Arctic cyclones in sea ice loss, which can occur at an astonishing rate of 0.5 million square kilometers (about 200,000 square miles) within a 3-day period. This research aims to understand the critical mechanisms that determine the location, strength, evolution, and characteristics of Arctic cyclones (ACs) and tropopause polar vortices (TPVs), and their potential for influencing sea ice break-up and decline. TPVs are an important precursor to the development and evolution of ACs and are also one of the longest-lived features in the Earth’s lower atmosphere. Yet their locations in data-sparse regions of the Arctic and their relatively small spatial scale make it difficult to observe and understand their detailed structure and resulting impacts on the Earth’s climate. Fundamental differences exist between the dynamics of cyclones in middle latitudes and the Arctic. For example, atmospheric vortices rather than waves play a more significant role in cyclone lifecycles and radiative processes have increased importance in maintaining and strengthening TPVs. Thus, the correct treatment of cloud and radiative processes in models is likely critical to accurately defining the structure and intensity of TPVs and ACs. The data needed to expand knowledge of these Arctic processes is currently limited due to the relatively sparse Arctic conventional observing network and the difficulties in obtaining high-quality measurements of Arctic clouds and moisture from satellite-based remote sensing. This project will also assess where new data are needed.This project will investigate the coupling of TPVs and ACs with the underlying sea surface and sea ice during the summer and advance our knowledge of how this coupling can lead to rapid sea ice loss. Researchers will test the hypothesis that an accurate representation of the vertical distribution of water vapor is necessary to represent the radiative heating required to evolve and intensify TPVs and ACs. The researchers will combine observations with state-of-the-art high-resolution numerical weather models and fully-coupled Earth-System models through coupled ensemble data assimilation for multi-scale studies. The team will perform observing system simulation experiments (OSSEs) as well as observing system experiments (OSEs) using atmospheric data from an aircraft field campaign and routinely available satellite and atmospheric data to estimate the observation impacts in a variety of well-defined scenarios. Knowledge gained from detailed simulations and observations of the processes that cause error growth will lead to improvements in weather and climate prediction by improving the representation of these processes in Earth-system numerical models across a wide range of scales, which is a main priority in the 2022-2026 Arctic Research Plan by The Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC). Students at all levels will have an opportunity to work with the data produced in this project, with a focus towards broadening participation from chronically underrepresented groups in STEM fields and in Oklahoma, including students identifying as Native Americans, members of First Nations, indigenous people, and American Indians.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

近几十年来，北极海冰已经变得更加流动和更薄，导致北极气旋在海冰损失中的越来越重要，这可能在3天内以50万平方公里（约200,000平方英里）的惊人速度发生。这项研究旨在了解确定北极旋风（ACS）和Tropapause极性涡流（TPV）的位置，强度，进化和特征的关键机制，以及它们影响海冰破裂和下降的潜力。 TPV是ACS发展和演变的重要先驱，也是地球较低大气中最长的特征之一。然而，他们在北极数据范围内的位置及其相对小的空间量表，使观察和理解其详细结构以及对地球气候的影响很难。中纬度和北极的旋风动力学之间存在根本差异。例如，大气涡流而不是波在旋风生命周期和辐射过程中起着更重要的作用，在维持和增强TPV方面的重要性提高了。这就是模型中云和辐射过程的正确处理对于准确定义TPV和ACS的结构和强度可能至关重要。由于相对稀疏的北极常规观测网络以及从基于卫星的遥感性获得高质量测量的北极测量和水分，因此目前需要扩大对这些北极过程知识的知识所需的数据受到限制。该项目还将评估需要新数据的位置。该项目将在夏季调查TPV和ACS与底层海面和海冰的耦合，并促进我们对这种耦合如何导致海冰快速损失的了解。研究人员将检验以下假设：水蒸气的垂直分布的准确表示对于表示进化和加强TPV和ACS所需的辐射加热是必要的。研究人员将通过最先进的高分辨率数值天气模型和完全耦合的地球系统模型结合观察结果，通过耦合的集合数据同化进行多尺度研究。该团队将使用来自飞机现场活动的大气数据以及常规可用的卫星和大气数据进行观察系统模拟实验（OSS）以及观察系统实验（OS），以估算各种定义明确的方案的观察影响。通过详细的模拟和对导致错误增长的过程的观察获得的知识，将通过改善各种规模的地球系统数值模型中这些过程的表示，从而改善天气和气候预测，这是2022- 2026年北极研究计划的主要优先事项，该计划由Interagency Intragency Arcentic Arctic Research Polistion Commits（IARPC）（IRPC）。各个层面的学生将有机会与该项目中产生的数据合作，重点是扩大长期代表性不足的群体在STEM领域和俄克拉荷马州的参与，包括确定为美国原住民，原住民，个人人和美洲印第安人的学生，这是NSF的法定任务，并通过评估范围来表现出色的人。