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The researchers looked at samples taken from three levels of water: the summer mixed layer, the upper Arctic water below it and the Pacific-origin water at the deepest level.

Each will have up to seven new sensors for measuring the “mixed layer,” the shallow waters just below the surface, in efforts to understand how the deep heat of El Niño rises through this layer to cause weather at the surface.

That abundance of dry air can be drawn eastward, forming what’s called an elevated mixed layer, or a cap of warm, dry air that suppresses storm growth during much of the day.

This window is known as the mixed layer, a sliver of water on the surface whose depth and stratification determines how much heat and carbon are absorbed by the ocean; the deeper and more well-mixed the layer, the wider the window opens and the easier it is for the ocean to absorb heat and carbon from the atmosphere.

Perhaps this has to do with the variable concentration of what Dr. Biddle called “pancake ice,” which creates heat variations in the mixed layer.