The international multidisciplinary Ocean - Atmosphere - Sea
Ice - Snowpack (OASIS) program studies chemical and physical exchange processes
between the title reservoirs. It focuses on their impact on tropospheric chemistry
and climate, as well as on the surface/biosphere and their feedbacks in the Arctic. OASIS was created in 2004, is currently an IPY activity, and is planned to continue as a long term program for the next decade.
Several projects are planned for 2008 as part of the IPY: OASIS-CANADA is focusing on the surface atmospheric chemistry of ozone and mercury over the Arctic Ocean using novel sampling strategies. This includes outfitting Arctic sleds with battery operated equipment to measure air-surface fluxes and participation in the development of "O-buoys"; autonomous buoys to remotely map ozone, carbon dioxide, and bromine. OASIS researchers participate in the ice-drift of the French sailboat "TARA", the CFL program during the overwintering of the Amundsen ice-breaker, the British led COBRA campaign off the coast of Northern Quebec, and the Arctic-SOLAS study, focusing among other topics on DMS emission and cloud formation in the summer. Another icebreaker study with an OASIS component is ASCOS in summer 2008 using the Swedish Oden focusing on Arctic summer clouds. British and US projects on POPs will investigate air - snow transfer of POPs and their photochemistry in the various reservoirs.
From Feb. - June of 2009 OASIS will conduct a large interdisciplinary field study at Barrow, AK and at a nearby ice camp in the Beaufort Sea to address key questions such as: How and where are which reactants processed in snow surfaces? How are halogen and HOx chemistry connected? What are the relative roles of snowpack and sea-salt aerosols in activating halogens? What is the impact of halogen chemistry on aerosol production? We also endeavor to use OASIS 2009 as a springboard to better connect OASIS science to the Arctic biological sciences and the global modeling community. One of the important questions that connects all three communities is how changing sea ice will change surface ozone concentrations, and thus mercury product fluxes, and how both of these will affect Arctic biota. Central for the entire field effort is the quantitative and reliable determination of chemical and biological fluxes to and from ice and snow surfaces from a 40m walk-up measurement tower in the clean-air sector at Barrow.
Several projects are planned for 2008 as part of the IPY: OASIS-CANADA is focusing on the surface atmospheric chemistry of ozone and mercury over the Arctic Ocean using novel sampling strategies. This includes outfitting Arctic sleds with battery operated equipment to measure air-surface fluxes and participation in the development of "O-buoys"; autonomous buoys to remotely map ozone, carbon dioxide, and bromine. OASIS researchers participate in the ice-drift of the French sailboat "TARA", the CFL program during the overwintering of the Amundsen ice-breaker, the British led COBRA campaign off the coast of Northern Quebec, and the Arctic-SOLAS study, focusing among other topics on DMS emission and cloud formation in the summer. Another icebreaker study with an OASIS component is ASCOS in summer 2008 using the Swedish Oden focusing on Arctic summer clouds. British and US projects on POPs will investigate air - snow transfer of POPs and their photochemistry in the various reservoirs.
From Feb. - June of 2009 OASIS will conduct a large interdisciplinary field study at Barrow, AK and at a nearby ice camp in the Beaufort Sea to address key questions such as: How and where are which reactants processed in snow surfaces? How are halogen and HOx chemistry connected? What are the relative roles of snowpack and sea-salt aerosols in activating halogens? What is the impact of halogen chemistry on aerosol production? We also endeavor to use OASIS 2009 as a springboard to better connect OASIS science to the Arctic biological sciences and the global modeling community. One of the important questions that connects all three communities is how changing sea ice will change surface ozone concentrations, and thus mercury product fluxes, and how both of these will affect Arctic biota. Central for the entire field effort is the quantitative and reliable determination of chemical and biological fluxes to and from ice and snow surfaces from a 40m walk-up measurement tower in the clean-air sector at Barrow.