A summary is presented of the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) project, with a focus on the field experiment that was conducted from October 1997 to October 1998. The primary objective of the field work was to collect ocean, ice, and atmospheric datasets over a full annual cycle that could be used to understand the processes controlling surface heat exchanges—in particular, the ice–albedo feedback and cloud–radiation feedback. This information is being used to improve formulations of arctic ice–ocean–atmosphere processes in climate models and thereby improve simulations of present and future arctic climate. The experiment was deployed from an ice breaker that was frozen into the ice pack and allowed to drift for the duration of the experiment. This research platform allowed the use of an extensive suite of instruments that directly measured ocean, atmosphere, and ice properties from both the ship and the ice pack in the immediate vicinity of the ship. This summary describes the project goals, experimental design, instrumentation, and the resulting datasets. Examples of various data products available from the SHEBA project are presented.
NOAA/Environmental Technology Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado
University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
McPhee Research Company, Naches, Washington
Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, U.S. Army, Hanover, New Hampshire
University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
Canadian Coast Guard, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, Boulder, Colorado
University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin
Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon
Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Lajolla, California
University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska
Winnepeg, Canada
Science and Technology Corporation, Boulder, Colorado
Stevens Institute of Technology, Maplewood, New Jersey
