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UD marine scientists part of international research team

The 420-foot U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy will be home to research teams from the University of Delaware, Oregon State University and the Institute of Ocean Sciences in British Columbia during a month-long expedition to begin tracking the fresh water flowing out of the Arctic Ocean into the Atlantic.

4:00 p.m., July 30, 2003--University of Delaware marine scientists are working aboard the 420-foot U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy on a National Science Foundation (NSF) project to track the fresh water flowing out of the Arctic Ocean into the Atlantic. This fresh water, from melting ice and rivers, affects the salinity and circulation of the ocean and thus has a major influence on the Earth’s climate.

“Freshwater discharge from the Arctic to the North Atlantic is a crucial factor controlling global climate,” says Andreas Muenchow, associate professor of physical ocean science and engineering in the UD College of Marine Studies and one of the lead investigators on the project.

The five-year study involves more than 35 scientists from Oregon State University, the Institute of Ocean Sciences in British Columbia, and the University of Delaware. The scientists will be using tools ranging from underwater current profilers to satellite sensors to determine the volume and timing of freshwater flows through Nares Strait, a narrow channel between northern Greenland and Canada’s Ellesmere Island.

Funded by a $2 million grant from NSF’s Office of Polar Programs, UD’s primary contribution to the research effort will be to install and operate an ocean-observing system in Nares Strait. On the first expedition, which set sail from St. John’s, Newfoundland on July 21 and concludes August 16 in Thule, Greenland, the UD team will set up oceanographic equipment moorings at 26 locations along the bottom of the strait to measure currents, temperature and salinity. Sea level will be monitored at eight locations, and two sensors will be installed to measure ice thickness and motion.

Before the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy left the harbor at St. Johns, Newfoundland, on July 21, UD’s research team posed for a photo. From left: Robert McCarthy, Melissa Zweng, Elinor Keith, Andreas Muenchow, Lauren Brown, Helen Johnson (a researcher from the University of Victoria), and David Huntley.

Led by Muenchow, UD’s science team includes research associate David Huntley, graduate student Melissa Zweng, UD sophomore Lauren Brown, Elinor Keith, a senior at Princeton University who is an intern this summer in the Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program at the College of Marine Studies, and Robert McCarthy, a physics teacher at Governor Mifflin High School in Reading, Pa.

After the Healy left its homeport in Seattle to transit the Panama Canal to the Atlantic Ocean, Muenchow and Huntley boarded the icebreaker to get their sea legs and begin testing their equipment.

“It’s very difficult for me to relax,” Muenchow wrote in an e-mail from the Healy. “There are just too many exciting things going on. I can see the instruments, and I can see the ocean from which these measurements are taken. Data on oceanography is streaming in, in real time, from all directions. I’m like a data junkie who has been given an overdose.”

The project Web site is updated daily with journals, photos and science news from the Arctic expedition for the benefit of students, the public and other researchers. To learn more, visit [http://newark.cms.udel.edu/~cats/].



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