From left to right: Dr. Muyin Wang, Dr. Nick Bond, Dr. Jim Overland, and Dr. Kevin Wood
Scientists from PMEL and JISAO took off on NOAA’s Hurricane Hunter P3 aircraft on October 2 from Seattle, Washington heading to Fairbanks, Alaska to take part in 5 flight missions to measure heat flux coming from the Arctic Ocean. This is the second year in a row scientists have flown above Arctic waters. Data gathered from both years to test the hypothesis that increased summer heat storage in the newly sea-ice free ocean regions in the Arctic lead to surface heat fluxes in autumn that are large enough to have impacts on atmospheric temperature, humidity, wind and cloud distributions.
This project has been jointly funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and NOAA, and includes both aircraft and ship operations. To learn more about NOAA's research in the Arctic, visit http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/.