Quantifying Arctic Ocean Tipping Points

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects. This specific fellowship focuses on quantifying Arctic Ocean tipping points and investigating how rapid loss of perennial sea-ice is driving Arctic marine ecosystems past critical thresholds. The research examines two major hypotheses: that the 2016-17 Bering Sea marine heatwave initiated a tipping point cascade in Pacific Arctic ecosystems, and that the imminent collapse of Nares Strait ice arches will destabilize the Last Ice Area and the North Water polynya. The fellowship involves developing high-resolution models using ECCO-Darwin ocean biogeochemistry state estimates to quantify abrupt physical-ecological changes and analyzing multi-decadal time series of key habitat elements. This one- to three-year postdoctoral fellowship is designed to advance NASA's missions in Earth science and will contribute to upcoming FORTE and Arctic-COLORS field campaigns as well as the Fifth International Polar Year.