Collaborative Research: Ideas Lab: BLUES: Boundary Layer Under-ice Environmental Sensing

合作研究：创意实验室：BLUES：冰下边界层环境传感

• 批准号: 2322223
• 负责人: Miao Yu
• 金额: $ 68.9万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2026-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2322223&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Ideas; Lab; BLUES

Global climate change is driving all forms of ice to melt from the Earth’s surface and contribute to global sea-level rise. While evidence of ice melt is worldwide, such as decreasing sea-ice extent, loss of ice shelves in polar regions and a reduction in annual lake-ice coverage, ice melt rates are poorly quantified, resulting from limited field data and relatively coarse measurements of ice thickness. Ice thickness measurements, made by propagating acoustic signals through the ice, decrease in resolution as a function of the attenuation properties and overall ice thickness. Novel acoustic metamaterials will be used in this Ideas Lab: Engineering Technologies to Advance Underwater Sciences (ETAUS) project to develop a transformative technology tool that can provide long-range, high-resolution measurements of ice thickness and provide a new mechanism to image the internal structure of the ice. These high-resolution observations will be used to refine global estimates of ice melt by looking at changes through time. Initial testing and development will be conducted in a laboratory setting before validation on natural lake ice that is variable in its acoustic signal attenuation properties. In every phase, the development and experimental demonstration will be guided by numerical modeling. This developed instrument will be transformative in terms of scientific understanding of all forms of ice within the cryosphere from the Arctic to the Antarctic. While polar regions are at the forefront of climate change, they are also some of the least accessible areas of the planet and make it difficult for the public to engage. To this end, new educational materials will be developed with the help of the education and outreach team at the Tahoe Environmental Research Center, which will be used to help broaden public participation in lake science and engineering.To effectively monitor and predict climate-related changes, a key scientific need in all disciplines of the under-ice scientific community is to accurately measure ice accretion and melt rates at the ice/water interface, then use that information to generate better models of under-ice water circulation and mixing. However, existing technologies are limited by their imaging capabilities, measurement resolutions, and bulky sizes, which hinder their applications for scientific discovery. To address these limitations, this project will develop a new metamaterial-enhanced acoustic phased array (MEAPA) system and to explore the application of this system for high-resolution estimations of ice melt. Graded index acoustic metamaterials will be investigated to provide improved focusing, beam steering, and collimation properties to achieve high-resolution imaging (subwavelength resolution) in thinner ice and to further enhance the detection range of the MEAPA system in thicker ice. The developed MEAPA system will be characterized and validated in laboratory and field settings. Then, it will be used to better parameterize bottom roughness, and the data will be coupled to boundary layer dynamics observations of lake ice in three-dimensional hydrodynamic models. Coupling the engineering development of this instrument with the scientific need of the polar ice community will inform subgrid processes of General Circulation Models (GCM) for polar regions. Ultimately, this system will enable us to better predict ice growth and melt with accurate models and to better quantify mass gain and loss from lake ice to ice shelves in Antarctica.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.

全球气候变化正在推动各种形式的冰从地球的表面融化，并有助于全球海平面上升。尽管冰融化的证据是在全球范围内的，例如降低了海冰的程度，极地区域的冰架损失以及年度湖冰覆盖率的降低，但冰融化速率的量化很差，这是由于田间数据有限和对冰厚度的相对粗略测量而导致的。冰厚度测量是通过通过冰传播声信号制成的，分辨率随衰减特性的函数和整体冰厚度而降低。该思想实验室将使用新颖的声学超材料：推进水下科学（ETAUS）项目的工程技术，以开发一种可以提供远程，高分辨率测量冰厚度的变革性技术工具，并提供新的机制来形象冰的内部结构。这些高分辨率观察将通过观察随着时间的推移的变化来改善冰融化的全球估计值。初始测试和发育将在实验室环境中进行，然后验证自然湖冰的声学信号衰减特性。在每个阶段，开发和实验演示都将以数值建模为指导。这项开发的仪器将在从北极到南极的冰冻圈中的所有形式的冰的科学理解方面具有变革性。尽管极地地区处于气候变化的最前沿，但它们也是地球上最不可能的地区中的一些，使公众很难参与。为此，将在Tahoe环境研究中心的教育和外展团队的帮助下开发新的教育材料，该中心将用于扩大公众参与湖泊科学和工程的参与。为了有效地监控和预测与气候相关的变化，这是与气候相关的重要需求，这是冰镇科学社区的所有阶级的重要科学需求，以便准确地衡量冰/冰的速度，然后在冰上融合，并在冰上融化，并融合了冰的融合，并融合了冰层，并融合了冰的融合，并融合了冰层，并融合了冰的融合，并融合了冰的融合，并在冰上融合了冰的融合，并在冰上融合了冰的融合，并在冰上融合了冰的融合。混合。但是，现有技术受其成像功能，测量分辨率和庞大尺寸的限制，这阻碍了他们对科学发现的应用。为了解决这些局限性，该项目将开发新的超材料增强的声学分阶段阵列（MEAPA）系统，并探索该系统的应用，以进行冰熔体的高分辨率估计。将研究分级的索引声学超材料，以提供改进的焦点，梁转向和碰撞特性，以在较薄的冰中实现高分辨率成像（亚波长度分辨率），并进一步增强较厚冰中MEAPA系统的检测范围。开发的MEAPA系统将在实验室和现场设置中进行表征和验证。然后，它将用于更好地参数化底部粗糙度，并将数据与三维流体动力模型中的湖冰的边界层动力学观测结果耦合。将该工具的工程开发与极地冰界的科学需求相结合，将为极地地区的通用循环模型（GCM）的子网格过程提供信息。最终，该系统将使我们能够更好地预测冰的生长并与准确的模型融化，并在南极洲的冰冰片到冰架上更好地量化质量收益和损失。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响审查标准通过评估来获得的支持。