Anastasia Tarasenko

Thesis topic: Mesoscale dynamics in marginal ice zone in Arctic

Advisors: Bertrand Chapron and Jean Tournadre

Funding: Vernadsky scholarship for French-Russian PhD 

Assuming the climate change, the marginal ice zone (MIZ), a transition area between the open ocean and pack ice, attracts more and more attention these days. My study concentrates on mesoscale dynamics of ocean surface currents and transformation of wind flows in Arctic MIZ using satellite data: active Sentinel-1/SAR-C, passive microwave measurements from AMSR-E and images in optical band from MODIS. Using these different sources of information I attempt to describe the local processes occurring in the region of strong roughness and temperature contrasts. Drifting sea ice particles in different wind conditions are used as a proxy to derive the ocean surface dynamics.

Keywords: marginal ice zone, sea ice drift, wind, Arctic Ocean, SAR