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A Decade of Change

The U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy steams through “pancake” sea ice in the western Arctic Ocean in October 2013. WHOI physical oceanographer Bob Pickart is leading the cruise to complete a ten-year study of how Pacific Ocean water flows into the Arctic Ocean through the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. During the past decade, an increase in summertime easterly winds has helped forced warm Pacific water into deeper parts of the Arctic Ocean basin, potentially contributing to declines in Arctic sea ice.(Photo by Carolina Nobre, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)