FY 1984

Drift characteristics of northeastern Bering Sea ice during 1982

Reynolds, R.M., and C.H. Pease

NOAA Tech. Memo. ERL PMEL-55, NTIS: PB84-213982, 135 pp (1984)

From 26 January to 10 February 1982, scientists from NOAA/PMEL deployed an array of 6 ARGOS drifting ice platforms in the vicinity of Nome, Alaska in the northeastern Bering Sea. Two of the platforms had meteorological and oceanographic stations which measured surface winds and currents and telemetered the data to the GOES-West satellite. During this time the NOAA WP-3D instrumented airplane made three flights over this area and out to the ice edge. The ARGOS platforms were allowed to drift freely and terminated in the ice pack due to ice deformation or to melt out. The last platform ceased transmitting on 30 June 1982 at 2300 GMT. Rather than a net drift southward toward the ice edge, the four platforms drifted northward into the Chukchi Sea, while two which were deployed later in Norton Sound remained in the vicinity of Norton Sound. Activity among the former was striking; in response to alternating wind and current directions, the floes oscillated through the Straits three or more times, and typical north-south excursions were 350 km. The floes accelerated to speeds of greater than 1 m/s as they passed through the Strait in either direction. The two platforms in Norton Sound oscillated north and south on the same time scales as the others but were restricted to the spatial scales of western Norton Sound.