Nicolaus Marcel

No Thumbnail Available
Last Name
Nicolaus
First Name
Marcel
ORCID

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Article
    Overview of the MOSAiC expedition: physical oceanography
    (University of California Press, 2022-02-07) Rabe, Benjamin ; Heuzé, Céline ; Regnery, Julia ; Aksenov, Yevgeny ; Allerholt, Jacob ; Athanase, Marylou ; Bai, Youcheng ; Basque, Chris R. ; Bauch, Dorothea ; Baumann, Till M. ; Chen, Dake ; Cole, Sylvia T. ; Craw, Lisa ; Davies, Andrew ; Damm, Ellen ; Dethloff, Klaus ; Divine, Dmitry V. ; Doglioni, Francesca ; Ebert, Falk ; Fang, Ying-Chih ; Fer, Ilker ; Fong, Allison A. ; Gradinger, Rolf ; Granskog, Mats A. ; Graupner, Rainer ; Haas, Christian ; He, Hailun ; Hoppmann, Mario ; Janout, Markus A. ; Kadko, David ; Kanzow, Torsten C. ; Karam, Salar ; Kawaguchi, Yusuke ; Koenig, Zoe ; Kong, Bin ; Krishfield, Richard A. ; Krumpen, Thomas ; Kuhlmey, David ; Kuznetsov, Ivan ; Lan, Musheng ; Laukert, Georgi ; Lei, Ruibo ; Li, Tao ; Torres-Valdes, Sinhue ; Lin, Lina ; Lin, Long ; Liu, Hailong ; Liu, Na ; Loose, Brice ; Ma, Xiaobing ; McKay, Rosalie ; Mallet, Maria ; Mallett, Robbie ; Maslowski, Wieslaw ; Mertens, Christian ; Mohrholz, Volker ; Muilwijk, Morven ; Nicolaus, Marcel ; O’Brien, Jeffrey K. ; Perovich, Donald K. ; Ren, Jian ; Rex, Markus ; Ribeiro, Natalia ; Rinke, Annette ; Schaffer, Janin ; Schuffenhauer, Ingo ; Schulz, Kirstin ; Shupe, Matthew ; Shaw, William J. ; Sokolov, Vladimir T. ; Sommerfeld, Anja ; Spreen, Gunnar ; Stanton, Timothy P. ; Stephens, Mark ; Su, Jie ; Sukhikh, Natalia ; Sundfjord, Arild ; Thomisch, Karolin ; Tippenhauer, Sandra ; Toole, John M. ; Vredenborg, Myriel ; Walter, Maren ; Wang, Hangzhou ; Wang, Lei ; Wang, Yuntao ; Wendisch, Manfred ; Zhao, Jinping ; Zhou, Meng ; Zhu, Jialiang
    Arctic Ocean properties and processes are highly relevant to the regional and global coupled climate system, yet still scarcely observed, especially in winter. Team OCEAN conducted a full year of physical oceanography observations as part of the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of the Arctic Climate (MOSAiC), a drift with the Arctic sea ice from October 2019 to September 2020. An international team designed and implemented the program to characterize the Arctic Ocean system in unprecedented detail, from the seafloor to the air-sea ice-ocean interface, from sub-mesoscales to pan-Arctic. The oceanographic measurements were coordinated with the other teams to explore the ocean physics and linkages to the climate and ecosystem. This paper introduces the major components of the physical oceanography program and complements the other team overviews of the MOSAiC observational program. Team OCEAN’s sampling strategy was designed around hydrographic ship-, ice- and autonomous platform-based measurements to improve the understanding of regional circulation and mixing processes. Measurements were carried out both routinely, with a regular schedule, and in response to storms or opening leads. Here we present along-drift time series of hydrographic properties, allowing insights into the seasonal and regional evolution of the water column from winter in the Laptev Sea to early summer in Fram Strait: freshening of the surface, deepening of the mixed layer, increase in temperature and salinity of the Atlantic Water. We also highlight the presence of Canada Basin deep water intrusions and a surface meltwater layer in leads. MOSAiC most likely was the most comprehensive program ever conducted over the ice-covered Arctic Ocean. While data analysis and interpretation are ongoing, the acquired datasets will support a wide range of physical oceanography and multi-disciplinary research. They will provide a significant foundation for assessing and advancing modeling capabilities in the Arctic Ocean.
  • Article
    Leads in Arctic pack ice enable early phytoplankton blooms below snow-covered sea ice
    (Nature Publishig Group, 2019-01-17) Assmy, Philipp ; Fernández-Méndez, Mar ; Duarte, Pedro ; Meyer, Amelie ; Randelhoff, Achim ; Mundy, Christopher J. ; Olsen, Lasse M. ; Kauko, Hanna Maria ; Bailey, Allison ; Chierici, Melissa ; Cohen, Lana ; Doulgeris, Anthony P. ; Ehn, Jens K. ; Fransson, Agneta ; Gerland, Sebastian ; Hop, Haakon ; Hudson, Stephen R. ; Hughes, Nick ; Itkin, Polona ; Johnsen, Geir ; King, Jennifer A. ; Koch, Boris P. ; Koenig, Zoe ; Kwasniewski, Slawomir ; Laney, Samuel R. ; Nicolaus, Marcel ; Pavlov, Alexey K. ; Polashenski, Christopher M. ; Provost, Christine ; Rösel, Anja ; Sandbu, Marthe ; Spreen, Gunnar ; Smedsrud, Lars H. ; Sundfjord, Arild ; Taskjelle, Torbjørn ; Tatarek, Agnieszka ; Wiktor, Jozef ; Wagner, Penelope M. ; Wold, Anette ; Steen, Harald ; Granskog, Mats A.
    The Arctic icescape is rapidly transforming from a thicker multiyear ice cover to a thinner and largely seasonal first-year ice cover with significant consequences for Arctic primary production. One critical challenge is to understand how productivity will change within the next decades. Recent studies have reported extensive phytoplankton blooms beneath ponded sea ice during summer, indicating that satellite-based Arctic annual primary production estimates may be significantly underestimated. Here we present a unique time-series of a phytoplankton spring bloom observed beneath snow-covered Arctic pack ice. The bloom, dominated by the haptophyte algae Phaeocystis pouchetii, caused near depletion of the surface nitrate inventory and a decline in dissolved inorganic carbon by 16 ± 6 g C m−2. Ocean circulation characteristics in the area indicated that the bloom developed in situ despite the snow-covered sea ice. Leads in the dynamic ice cover provided added sunlight necessary to initiate and sustain the bloom. Phytoplankton blooms beneath snow-covered ice might become more common and widespread in the future Arctic Ocean with frequent lead formation due to thinner and more dynamic sea ice despite projected increases in high-Arctic snowfall. This could alter productivity, marine food webs and carbon sequestration in the Arctic Ocean.
  • Article
    Influence of ice thickness and surface properties on light transmission through Arctic sea ice
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2015-09-04) Katlein, Christian ; Arndt, Stefanie ; Nicolaus, Marcel ; Perovich, Donald K. ; Jakuba, Michael V. ; Suman, Stefano ; Elliott, Stephen M. ; Whitcomb, Louis L. ; McFarland, Christopher J. ; Gerdes, Rudiger ; Boetius, Antje ; German, Christopher R.
    The observed changes in physical properties of sea ice such as decreased thickness and increased melt pond cover severely impact the energy budget of Arctic sea ice. Increased light transmission leads to increased deposition of solar energy in the upper ocean and thus plays a crucial role for amount and timing of sea-ice-melt and under-ice primary production. Recent developments in underwater technology provide new opportunities to study light transmission below the largely inaccessible underside of sea ice. We measured spectral under-ice radiance and irradiance using the new Nereid Under-Ice (NUI) underwater robotic vehicle, during a cruise of the R/V Polarstern to 83°N 6°W in the Arctic Ocean in July 2014. NUI is a next generation hybrid remotely operated vehicle (H-ROV) designed for both remotely piloted and autonomous surveys underneath land-fast and moving sea ice. Here we present results from one of the first comprehensive scientific dives of NUI employing its interdisciplinary sensor suite. We combine under-ice optical measurements with three dimensional under-ice topography (multibeam sonar) and aerial images of the surface conditions. We investigate the influence of spatially varying ice-thickness and surface properties on the spatial variability of light transmittance during summer. Our results show that surface properties such as melt ponds dominate the spatial distribution of the under-ice light field on small scales (<1000 m2), while sea ice-thickness is the most important predictor for light transmission on larger scales. In addition, we propose the use of an algorithm to obtain histograms of light transmission from distributions of sea ice thickness and surface albedo.
  • Article
    The MOSAiC Distributed Network: Observing the coupled Arctic system with multidisciplinary, coordinated platforms
    (University of California Press, 2024-05-10) Rabe, Benjamin ; Cox, Christopher J. ; Fang, Ying-Chih ; Goessling, Helge ; Granskog, Mats A. ; Hoppmann, Mario ; Hutchings, Jennifer K. ; Krumpen, Thomas ; Kuznetsov, Ivan ; Lei, Ruibo ; Li, Tao ; Maslowski, Wieslaw ; Nicolaus, Marcel ; Perovich, Don ; Persson, Ola ; Regnery, Julia ; Rigor, Ignatius ; Shupe, Matthew D. ; Sokolov, Vladimir T. ; Spreen, Gunnar ; Stanton, Tim ; Watkins, Daniel M. ; Blockley, Ed ; Buenger, H. Jakob ; Cole, Sylvia T. ; Fong, Allison A. ; Haapala, Jari ; Heuze, Celine ; Hoppe, Clara J. M. ; Janout, Markus A. ; Jutila, Arttu ; Katlein, Christian ; Krishfield, Richard A. ; Lin, Long ; Ludwig, Valentin ; Morgenstern, Anne ; O’Brien, Jeff ; Zurita, Alejandra Quintanilla ; Rackow, Thomas ; Riemann-Campe, Kathrin ; Rohde, Jan ; Shaw, William J. ; Smolyanitsky, Vasily ; Solomon, Amy ; Sperling, Anneke ; Tao, Ran ; Toole, John M. ; Tsamados, Michel ; Zhu, Jialiang ; Zuo, Guangyu
    Central Arctic properties and processes are important to the regional and global coupled climate system. The Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) Distributed Network (DN) of autonomous ice-tethered systems aimed to bridge gaps in our understanding of temporal and spatial scales, in particular with respect to the resolution of Earth system models. By characterizing variability around local measurements made at a Central Observatory, the DN covers both the coupled system interactions involving the ocean-ice-atmosphere interfaces as well as three-dimensional processes in the ocean, sea ice, and atmosphere. The more than 200 autonomous instruments (“buoys”) were of varying complexity and set up at different sites mostly within 50 km of the Central Observatory. During an exemplary midwinter month, the DN observations captured the spatial variability of atmospheric processes on sub-monthly time scales, but less so for monthly means. They show significant variability in snow depth and ice thickness, and provide a temporally and spatially resolved characterization of ice motion and deformation, showing coherency at the DN scale but less at smaller spatial scales. Ocean data show the background gradient across the DN as well as spatially dependent time variability due to local mixed layer sub-mesoscale and mesoscale processes, influenced by a variable ice cover. The second case (May–June 2020) illustrates the utility of the DN during the absence of manually obtained data by providing continuity of physical and biological observations during this key transitional period. We show examples of synergies between the extensive MOSAiC remote sensing observations and numerical modeling, such as estimating the skill of ice drift forecasts and evaluating coupled system modeling. The MOSAiC DN has been proven to enable analysis of local to mesoscale processes in the coupled atmosphere-ice-ocean system and has the potential to improve model parameterizations of important, unresolved processes in the future.
  • Article
    Sea ice mass balance during the MOSAiC drift experiment: Results from manual ice and snow thickness gauges
    (University of California Press, 2024-07-09) Raphael, Ian A. ; Perovich, Donald K. ; Polashenski, Christopher M. ; Clemens-Sewall, David ; Itkin, Polona ; Lei, Ruibo ; Nicolaus, Marcel ; Regnery, Julia ; Smith, Madison M. ; Webster, Melinda ; Jaggi, Matthias
    Precise measurements of Arctic sea ice mass balance are necessary to understand the rapidly changing sea ice cover and its representation in climate models. During the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition, we made repeat point measurements of snow and ice thickness on primarily level first- and second-year ice (FYI, SYI) using ablation stakes and ice thickness gauges. This technique enabled us to distinguish surface and bottom (basal) melt and characterize the importance of oceanic versus atmospheric forcing. We also evaluated the time series of ice growth and melt in the context of other MOSAiC observations and historical mass balance observations from the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic (SHEBA) campaign and the North Pole Environmental Observatory (NPEO). Despite similar freezing degree days, average ice growth at MOSAiC was greater on FYI (1.67 m) and SYI (1.23 m) than at SHEBA (1.45 m, 0.53 m), due in part to initially thinner ice and snow conditions on MOSAiC. Our estimates of effective snow thermal conductivity, which agree with SHEBA results and other MOSAiC observations, are unlikely to explain the difference. On MOSAiC, FYI grew more and faster than SYI, demonstrating a feedback loop that acts to increase ice production after multi-year ice loss. Surface melt on MOSAiC (mean of 0.50 m) was greater than at NPEO (0.18 m), with considerable spatial variability that correlated with surface albedo variability. Basal melt was relatively small (mean of 0.12 m), and higher than NPEO observations (0.07 m). Finally, we present observations showing that false bottoms reduced basal melt rates in some FYI cases, in agreement with other observations at MOSAiC. These detailed mass balance observations will allow further investigation into connections between the carefully observed surface energy budget, ocean heat fluxes, sea ice, and ecosystem at MOSAiC and during other campaigns.