AMOC: Listen to the climate change?

Abstract

Acoustical methods such as acoustic tomography and thermometry have proved their importance in future long-term monitoring of ocean climate. The scope of this presentation is to show how ambient noise can be used as additional information in a future acoustic monitoring system for the Arctic ocean. To our knowledge, no inversion of ambient noise characteristics to sea ice and ocean parameters has been attempted neither in the MIZ nor the interior of the Arctic Ocean. Key parameters in ocean climate monitoring in the Arctic are averaged ice thickness and averaged ocean temperature profiles. These parameters are very difficult and time demanding to measure by using point measurements, and unavailable using electromagnetic waves. Therefore, special attention has been paid to developing new concepts for measuring ocean stratification and averaged ice thickness. A new concept combining wave models, SAR data, and ambient noise recordings for retrieving the sea ice thickness and elastic parameters of the sea ice in MIZ are presented. Another concept is proposed for use in the MIZ and in the interior Arctic using averaged ambient noise frequency spectra to obtain information about the sea ice and ocean stratification.