Water mass properties derived from satellite observations in the Barents Sea

The Barents Sea is a region of deep water formation where Atlantic Water is converted into cooler, fresher Barents Sea Water. Barents Sea Water properties exhibit variability at seasonal, interannual, and decadal timescales. This variability is transferred to Arctic Intermediate Water, which eventually contributes to the deeper branch of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. Variations in Barents Sea Water properties are reflected in steric height (contribution of density to sea‐level variations) that depends on heat and freshwater contents and is a quantity usually derived from in situ observations of water temperature, salinity, and pressure that remain sparse during winter in the Barents Sea. This analysis explores the utility of satellite observations for representing Barents Sea Water properties and identifying trends and sources of variability through novel methods. We present our methods for combining satellite observations of eustatic height (the contribution of mass to sea‐level variations), sea surface height, and sea surface temperature, validated by in situ temperature and salinity profiles, to estimate steric height. We show that sea surface temperature is a good proxy for heat content in the upper part of the water column in the southeastern Barents Sea and that freshwater content can be reconstructed from satellite data. Our analysis indicates that most of the seasonality in Barents Sea Water properties arises from the balance between ocean heat transport and atmospheric heat flux, while its interannual variability is driven by heat and freshwater advection

Observed atlantification of the Barents Sea Causes the polar front to limit the expansion of winter sea ice

Barents Sea Water (BSW) is formed from Atlantic Water that is cooled through atmospheric heat loss and freshened through seasonal sea ice melt. In the eastern Barents Sea, the BSW and fresher, colder Arctic Water meet at the surface along the Polar Front (PF). Despite its importance in setting the northern limit of BSW ventilation, the PF has been poorly documented, mostly eluding detection by observational surveys that avoid seasonal sea ice. In this study, satellite sea surface temperature (SST) observations are used in addition to a temperature and salinity climatology to examine the location and structure of the PF and characterize its variability over the period 1985–2016. It is shown that the PF is independent of the position of the sea ice edge and is a shelf slope current constrained by potential vorticity. The main driver of interannual variability in SST is the variability of the Atlantic Water temperature, which has significantly increased since 2005. The SST gradient associated with the PF has also increased after 2005, preventing sea ice from extending south of the front during winter in recent years. The disappearance of fresh, seasonal sea ice melt south of the PF has led to a significant increase in BSW salinity and density. As BSW forms the majority of Arctic Intermediate Water, changes to BSW properties may have far-reaching impacts for Arctic Ocean circulation and climate

Diffusive vertical heat flux in the Canada Basin of the Arctic Ocean inferred from moored instruments

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 119 (2014): 496-508, doi:10.1002/2013JC009346.Observational studies have shown that an unprecedented warm anomaly has recently affected the temperature of the Atlantic Water (AW) layer lying at intermediate depth in the Arctic Ocean. Using observations from four profiling moorings, deployed in the interior of the Canada Basin between 2003 and 2011, the upward diffusive vertical heat flux from this layer is quantified. Vertical diffusivity is first estimated from a fine-scale parameterization method based on CTD and velocity profiles. Resulting diffusive vertical heat fluxes from the AW are in the range 0.1–0.2 W m−2 on average. Although large over the period considered, the variations of the AW temperature maximum yields small variations for the temperature gradient and thus the vertical diffusive heat flux. In most areas, variations in upward diffusive vertical heat flux from the AW have only a limited effect on temperature variations of the overlying layer. However, the presence of eddies might be an effective mechanism to enhance vertical heat transfer, although the small number of eddies sampled by the moorings suggest that this mechanism remains limited and intermittent in space and time. Finally, our results suggest that computing diffusive vertical heat flux with a constant vertical diffusivity of ∼2 × 10−6 m2 s−1 provides a reasonable estimate of the upward diffusive heat transfer from the AW layer, although this approximation breaks down in the presence of eddies.C. Lique acknowledge support from JISAO and the Program on Climate Change of the University of Washington. J. Guthrie and J. Morison are supported by National Science Foundation grants ARC-0909408 and ARC-0856330. M. Steele is supported by the Office of Naval Researches Arctic and Global Prediction Program, by NSFs Division of Polar Programs, and by NASAs Cryosphere and Physical Oceanography programs. Support for the BGOS program and R. Krishfield was provided by the National Science Foundation (under grants ARC-0806115, ARC-0631951, ARC-0806306, and ARC-0856531) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution internal funding. For A. Proshutinsky, this research is supported by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs, awards ARC-1203720 and ARC-0856531.2014-07-2

An assessment of the Arctic Ocean in a suite of interannual CORE-II simulations. Part III: Hydrography and fluxes

In this paper we compare the simulated Arctic Ocean in 15 global ocean–sea ice models in the framework of the Coordinated Ocean-ice Reference Experiments, phase II (CORE-II). Most of these models are the ocean and sea-ice components of the coupled climate models used in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) experiments. We mainly focus on the hydrography of the Arctic interior, the state of Atlantic Water layer and heat and volume transports at the gateways of the Davis Strait, the Bering Strait, the Fram Strait and the Barents Sea Opening. We found that there is a large spread in temperature in the Arctic Ocean between the models, and generally large differences compared to the observed temperature at intermediate depths. Warm bias models have a strong temperature anomaly of inflow of the Atlantic Water entering the Arctic Ocean through the Fram Strait. Another process that is not represented accurately in the CORE-II models is the formation of cold and dense water, originating on the eastern shelves. In the cold bias models, excessive cold water forms in the Barents Sea and spreads into the Arctic Ocean through the St. Anna Through. There is a large spread in the simulated mean heat and volume transports through the Fram Strait and the Barents Sea Opening. The models agree more on the decadal variability, to a large degree dictated by the common atmospheric forcing. We conclude that the CORE-II model study helps us to understand the crucial biases in the Arctic Ocean. The current coarse resolution state-of-the-art ocean models need to be improved in accurate representation of the Atlantic Water inflow into the Arctic and density currents coming from the shelves

SKIM, a candidate satellite mission exploring global ocean currents and waves

The Sea surface KInematics Multiscale monitoring (SKIM) satellite mission is designed to explore ocean surface current and waves. This includes tropical currents, notably the poorly known patterns of divergence and their impact on the ocean heat budget, and monitoring of the emerging Arctic up to 82.5°N. SKIM will also make unprecedented direct measurements of strong currents, from boundary currents to the Antarctic circumpolar current, and their interaction with ocean waves with expected impacts on air-sea fluxes and extreme waves. For the first time, SKIM will directly measure the ocean surface current vector from space. The main instrument on SKIM is a Ka-band conically scanning, multi-beam Doppler radar altimeter/wave scatterometer that includes a state-of-the-art nadir beam comparable to the Poseidon-4 instrument on Sentinel 6. The well proven Doppler pulse-pair technique will give a surface drift velocity representative of the top meter of the ocean, after subtracting a large wave-induced contribution. Horizontal velocity components will be obtained with an accuracy better than 7 cm/s for horizontal wavelengths larger than 80 km and time resolutions larger than 15 days, with a mean revisit time of 4 days for of 99% of the global oceans. This will provide unique and innovative measurements that will further our understanding of the transports in the upper ocean layer, permanently distributing heat, carbon, plankton, and plastics. SKIM will also benefit from co-located measurements of water vapor, rain rate, sea ice concentration, and wind vectors provided by the European operational satellite MetOp-SG(B), allowing many joint analyses. SKIM is one of the two candidate satellite missions under development for ESA Earth Explorer 9. The other candidate is the Far infrared Radiation Understanding and Monitoring (FORUM). The final selection will be announced by September 2019, for a launch in the coming decade

Lagrangian ocean analysis: fundamentals and practices

Lagrangian analysis is a powerful way to analyse the output of ocean circulation models and other ocean velocity data such as from altimetry. In the Lagrangian approach, large sets of virtual particles are integrated within the three-dimensional, time-evolving velocity fields. Over several decades, a variety of tools and methods for this purpose have emerged. Here, we review the state of the art in the field of Lagrangian analysis of ocean velocity data, starting from a fundamental kinematic framework and with a focus on large-scale open ocean applications. Beyond the use of explicit velocity fields, we consider the influence of unresolved physics and dynamics on particle trajectories. We comprehensively list and discuss the tools currently available for tracking virtual particles. We then showcase some of the innovative applications of trajectory data, and conclude with some open questions and an outlook. The overall goal of this review paper is to reconcile some of the different techniques and methods in Lagrangian ocean analysis, while recognising the rich diversity of codes that have and continue to emerge, and the challenges of the coming age of petascale computing

Etude des échanges entre l'Océan Arctique et l'Atlantique Nord : Origine, Variabilité et Impact sur les mers Nordiques

While perhaps the most obvious, ice retreat is just one aspect of a changing Arctic system. The Arctic Ocean is also undergoing unprecedented modifications, that mostly affect its heat and freshwater budgets. As the signal of Arctic change is expected to have its major climatic impact by reaching south the subarctic seas, on either side of Greenland, to modulate the Atlantic thermohaline circulation, the objective of this thesis is to investigate the variability of the exports of volume, heat, freshwater and sea-ice from the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic. First, a realistic simulation from 1958 to 2002 run with a global ocean/sea-ice model is used to investigate some aspects of the variability of the Arctic freshwater budget, trying to understand which component of the balance is responsible for the variability of the Arctic freshwater content. We also examine the variability of the freshwater exports to the North Atlantic and we find that this variability is controlled differently on both sides of Greenland: whilst freshwater transport variations across Davis Strait are completely determined by the variations of the total volume flux, the salinity variations due to the ice ocean flux north of Greenland are responsible for a significant part of the freshwater export variability through Fram Strait. Afterward, a simulation run with a fully assimilated model of the very recent period is used to explore the possible consequences of the 2007 sea ice extent minimum on the Arctic Ocean freshwater content. Then, the origins of the water masses exported from the Arctic to the North Atlantic along both sides of Greenland are investigated, using an original numerical method. A quantitative Lagrangian analysis is applied to the monthly climatological 3D output of a global ocean/sea-ice high resolution model. It allows quantification of the different branches of the export to the North Atlantic, as well as related timescales and water mass transformations. A complete and coherent scheme of circulation for the Arctic is proposed, and the role of the Barents Sea for the transformation of the Atlantic inflow is emphasized. Last, we examine the relative influences of the different atmospheric fields (wind stress, heat and salt flux) on the variability of the Arctic sea ice volume. Sensitivity experiments run with a regional Arctic/North Atlantic model allow to investigate the spatial and temporal distributions of these influences.C'est sans doute en Arctique que le changement climatique est le plus visible, et semble affecter toutes les composantes du système Arctique, et notamment ses bilans d'eau douce et de chaleur. Alors que l'on s'attend à ce que le signal d'un changement local en Arctique ait son impact climatique le plus important lorsqu'il est exporté au sud d'un coté ou de l'autre du Groenland vers les mers subarctiques, où il peut moduler l'intensité de la circulation thermohaline, l'objectif de cette thèse est donc d'étudier les échanges de volume, de chaleur, d'eau douce et de glace de l'Océan Arctique vers l'Atlantique Nord. Tout d'abord, une simulation réaliste des années 1958 à 2002 basée sur un modèle global couplé glace/océan est utilisée pour étudier la variabilité du bilan d'eau douce en Arctique, afin de comprendre quelle composante de ce bilan contrôle les variations du contenu halin du bassin. On s'intéresse également à la variabilité des exports d'eau douce vers l'Atlantique Nord, et on montre que les exports d'eau douce vers l'Atlantique sont contrôlés par des mécanismes différents de part et d'autre du Groenland: dans les détroits canadiens, le transport de volume domine la variabilité, alors que salinité et courants contribuent à la variabilité dans le détroit de Fram. Par la suite, une réanalyse océanique des années récentes nous permet d'explorer les conséquences pour le contenu halin de l'Arctique du minimum record de l'extension de glace de l'été 2007. Une méthode numérique originale est ensuite utilisée pour comprendre l'origine des masses d'eau qui sont exportées de l'Arctique vers l'Atlantique Nord. On effectue ainsi une analyse lagrangienne qualitative à partir des sorties 3D mensuelles climatologiques d'un modèle global couplé glace/océan à haute résolution, qui permet de quantifier les contributions relatives des différentes branches de circulation à ces exports, ainsi que les échelles de temps et les transformations de masses d'eau associées. Un schéma complet de la circulation dans le bassin Arctique est ainsi proposé, et nous soulignons le rôle clé de la mer de Barents pour les transformations des eaux d'origine Atlantique. Enfin, nous examinons l'influence relative des différents forçages atmosphériques (vent, flux de chaleur et halins) sur les variations du volume de glace en Arctique. Des expériences de sensibilité sont réalisées à l'aide d'un modèle régional de l'Arctique et l'Atlantique Nord, permettant de mieux comprendre les distributions spatiales et temporelles des contributions des différents forçages atmosphériques

Is there any imprint of the wind variability on the Atlantic Water circulation within the Arctic Basin?

The Atlantic Water (AW) layer in the Arctic Basin is isolated from the atmosphere by the overlaying surface layer, yet observations have revealed that the velocities in this layer exhibit significant variations. Here analysis of a global ocean/sea ice model hindcast, complemented by experiments performed with an idealized process model, is used to investigate what controls the variability of AW circulation, with a focus on the role of wind forcing. The AW circulation carries the imprint of wind variations, both remotely over the Nordic and Barents Seas where they force the AW inflow variability, and locally over the Arctic Basin through the forcing of the wind-driven Beaufort Gyre, which modulates and transfers the wind variability to the AW layer. The strong interplay between the circulation within the surface and AW layers suggests that both layers must be considered to understand variability in either

Étude des échanges entre l Océan Arctique et l Atlantique Nord (origine, variabilité et impact sur les mers Nordiques)

C est sans doute en Arctique que le changement climatique est le plus visible, et semble affecter toutes les composantes du système Arctique. Si la fonte de la glace de mer est l expression la plus frappante de ces modifications, elle s accompagne également de transformations importantes et sans précédent de l océan Arctique, et plus particulièrement de ses budgets d eau douce et de chaleur. Mais si toutes ces modifications sont susceptibles de modifier le climat et la dynamique océanique localement en Arctique, on s attend surtout à ce que le signal d un changement en Arctique ait son impact climatique le plus important lorsqu il est exporté au sud d un coté ou de l autre du Groenland vers les mers subarctiques, où il peut potentiellement moduler l intensité de la circulation thermohaline globale. L objectif de cette thèse est donc d étudier les échanges de volume, de chaleur, d eau douce et de glace qui ont lieu entre l océan Arctique et l Atlantique Nord. Tout d abord, une simulation réaliste des années 1958 à 2002 basée sur un modèle global couplé glace/océan est utilisée pour étudier la variabilité du budget d eau douce en Arctique, afin de comprendre quelle composante de ce budget est responsable des variations du contenu halin du bassin Arctique. On s intéresse également à la variabilité des exports d eau douce vers l Atlantique Nord, afin de comprendre les mécanismes responsables de cette variabilité. Le modèle permet ainsi montrer que les échanges d eau douce avec l Atlantique Nord de part et d autre du Groenland sont contrôlés par des mécanismes différents : dans les détroits canadiens, le transport de volume domine la variabilité, alors que salinité et courants contribuent à la variabilité dans le détroit de Fram. Par la suite, une réanalyse océanique des années récentes nous permet d explorer les conséquences pour le contenu halin de l Arctique de l accélération de la fonte de la banquise et plus particulièrement celles du minimum de l extension de glace sans précédent qui a eu lieu à la fin de l été 2007. Dans un deuxième temps, une méthode numérique originale est utilisée pour comprendre l origine des masses d eau qui sont exportées de l Arctique vers l Atlantique Nord. On effectue ainsi une analyse lagrangienne qualitative à partir des sorties 3D mensuelles climatologiques d un modèle global couplé glacefocéan à haute résolution. Cette étude permet de quantifier les contributions relatives des différentes branches de circulation à ces exports, ainsi que les échelles de temps et les transformations de masses d eau associées à ces différentes branches de circulation. De plus, un schéma complet de la circulation dans le bassin Arctique est proposé, et nous mettons en évidence le rôle clé de la mer de Barents pour les transformations des eaux Atlantique qui pénétrent en Arctique. Enfin, nous nous intéressons à l influence relative des différents forçages atmosphériques (vent, flux de chaleur et halins) sur la variabilité des échanges Arctique/Atlantique, et sur les variations du volume de glace en Arctique. Dans ce but, des expériences de sensibilité sont réalisées à l aide d un modèle régional de l Arctique et l Atlantique Nord, permettant de mieux comprendre les distributions spatiales et temporelles des contributions des différents forçages atmosphériques.While perhaps the most obvious, ice retreat is just one aspect of a changing Arctic system. The Arctic Ocean is also undergoing unprecedented modifications, that mostly affect its heat and freshwater budgets. As the signal of Arctic change is expected to have its major climatic impact by reaching south the subarctic seas, on either side of Greenland, to modulate the Atlantic thermohaline circulation, the objective of this thesis is to investigate the variability of the exports of volume, heat, freshwater and sea-ice from the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic. First, a realistic simulation from 1958 to 2002 run with a global ocean/sea-ice model is used to investigate some aspects of the variabllity of the Arctic freshwater budget, trying to understand which component of the balance is responsible for the variability of the Arctic freshwater content. We also examine the variability of the freshwater exports to the North Atlantic and we find that this variabillty is controlled differently on both sides of Greenland: whilst freshwater transport variations across Davis Strait are completely determined by the variations of the total volume flux, the salinity variations due to the ice ocean flux north of Greenland are responsible for a significant part of the freshwater export variability through Fram Strait. Afterward, a simulation run with a fully assimilated model of the very recent period is used to explore the possible consequences of the 2007 sea ice extent minimum on the Arctic Ocean freshwater content. Then, the origins of the water masses exported from the Arctic to the North Atlantic along both sides of Greenland are investigated, using an original numerical method. A quantitative Lagrangian analysis is applied to the monthly climatological 3D output of a global ocean/sea-ice high resolution model. It allows quantification of the different branches of the export to the North Atlantic, as well as related timescales and wator mass transformations. A complete and coherent scheme of circulation for the Arctic is proposed, and the role of the Barents Sea for the transformation of the Atlantic intfow is emphasized. Last, we examine the relative influences of the different atmospheric fields (wind stress, heat and salt flux) on the variability of the Arctic/North Atlantic exchanges and on the variability of the Arctic sea ice volume. Sensitivity experiments allow to investigate the spatial and temporal distributions of these influences.BREST-BU Droit-Sciences-Sports (290192103) / SudocPLOUZANE-Bibl.La Pérouse (290195209) / SudocSudocFranceF