Time scales of the Greenland freshwater anomaly in the subpolar North Atlantic

Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2021. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 34(22), (2021): 8971–8987, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-20-0610.1.The impact of increasing Greenland freshwater discharge on the subpolar North Atlantic (SPNA) remains unknown as there are uncertainties associated with the time scales of the Greenland freshwater anomaly (GFWA) in the SPNA. Results from numerical simulations tracking GFWA and an analytical approach are employed to estimate the response time, suggesting that a decadal time scale (13 years) is required for the SPNA to adjust for increasing GFWA. Analytical solutions obtained for a long-lasting increase of freshwater discharge show a non-steady-state response of the SPNA with increasing content of the GFWA. In contrast, solutions for a short-lived pulse of freshwater demonstrate different responses of the SPNA with a rapid increase of freshwater in the domain followed by an exponential decay after the pulse has passed. The derived theoretical relation between time scales shows that residence time scales are time dependent for a non-steady-state case and asymptote the response time scale with time. The residence time of the GFWA deduced from Lagrangian experiments is close to and smaller than the response time, in agreement with the theory. The Lagrangian analysis shows dependence of the residence time on the entrance route of the GFWA and on the depth. The fraction of the GFWA exported through Davis Strait has limited impact on the interior basins, whereas the fraction entering the SPNA from the southwest Greenland shelf spreads into the interior regions. In both cases, the residence time of the GFWA increases with depth demonstrating long persistence of the freshwater anomaly in the subsurface layers.D. S. Dukhovskoy and E. P. Chassignet were funded by the DOE (Award DE-SC0014378) and HYCOM NOPP (Award N00014-19-1-2674). The HYCOM-CICE simulations were supported by a grant of computer time from the DoD High-Performance Computing Modernization Program at NRL SSC. G. Platov was funded by the RSF N19-17-00154. P. G. Myers was funded by an NSERC Discovery Grant (Grant RGPIN 04357). A. Proshutinsky was funded by FAMOS project (NSF Grant NSF 14-584)

Mechanisms of Pacific Summer Water variability in the Arctic's Central Canada Basin

© The Author(s), 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 119 (2014): 7523–7548, doi:10.1002/2014JC010273.Pacific Water flows northward through Bering Strait and penetrates the Arctic Ocean halocline throughout the Canadian Basin sector of the Arctic. In summer, Pacific Summer Water (PSW) is modified by surface buoyancy fluxes and mixing as it crosses the shallow Chukchi Sea before entering the deep ocean. Measurements from Ice-Tethered Profilers, moorings, and hydrographic surveys between 2003 and 2013 reveal spatial and temporal variability in the PSW component of the halocline in the Central Canada Basin with increasing trends in integrated heat and freshwater content, a consequence of PSW layer thickening as well as layer freshening and warming. It is shown here how properties in the Chukchi Sea in summer control the temperature-salinity properties of PSW in the interior by subduction at isopycnals that outcrop in the Chukchi Sea. Results of an ocean model, forced by idealized winds, provide support to the mechanism of surface ocean Ekman transport convergence maintaining PSW ventilation of the halocline.Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation Division of Polar Programs under award 1107623, 1313614, 1107412, 1107277, 1303644, and 0938137 and by Yale University. ICMMG model development was supported by the Russian Fund for Basic Research (14-05-00730A)

Arctic pathways of Pacific Water: Arctic Ocean model intercomparison experiments

Pacific Water (PW) enters the Arctic Ocean through Bering Strait and brings heat, fresh water and nutrients from the northern Bering Sea. The circulation of PW in the central Arctic Ocean is only partially understood due to the lack of observations. In this paper pathways of PW are investigated using simulations with six state-of-the art regional and global Ocean General Circulation Models (OGCMs). In the simulations PW is tracked by a passive tracer, released in Bering Strait. Simulated PW water spreads from the Bering Strait region in three major branches. One of them starts in the Barrow Canyon, bringing PW along continental slope of Alaska into the Canadian Straits and then into Baffin Bay. The other initiates in the vicinity of the Herald Canyon and transports PW along the continental slope of the East-Siberian Sea into the transpolar drift, and then through Fram Strait and the Greenland Sea. The third branch begins near the Herald Shoal and the central Chukchi shelf and brings PW waters into the Beaufort Gyre. Models suggest that the spread of PW through the Arctic Ocean depends on the atmospheric circulation. In the models the wind, acting via Ekman pumping, drives the seasonal and interannual variability of PW in the Canadian Basin of the Arctic Ocean. The wind effects the simulated PW pathways by changing vertical shear of the relative vorticity of the ocean flow in the Canada Basin

Analysis of the Beaufort Gyre freshwater content in 2003-2018

© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Proshutinsky, A., Krishfield, R., Toole, J. M., Timmermans, M-L., Williams, W. J., Zimmermann, S., Yamamoto-Kawai, M., Armitage, T. W. K., Dukhovskoy, D., Golubeva, E., Manucharyan, G. E., Platov, G., Watanabe, E., Kikuchi, T., Nishino, S., Itoh, M., Kang, S-H., Cho, K-H., Tateyama, K., & Zhao, J. Analysis of the Beaufort Gyre freshwater content in 2003-2018. Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, 124(12), (2019): 9658-9689, doi:10.1029/2019JC015281.Hydrographic data collected from research cruises, bottom‐anchored moorings, drifting Ice‐Tethered Profilers, and satellite altimetry in the Beaufort Gyre region of the Arctic Ocean document an increase of more than 6,400 km3 of liquid freshwater content from 2003 to 2018: a 40% growth relative to the climatology of the 1970s. This fresh water accumulation is shown to result from persistent anticyclonic atmospheric wind forcing (1997–2018) accompanied by sea ice melt, a wind‐forced redirection of Mackenzie River discharge from predominantly eastward to westward flow, and a contribution of low salinity waters of Pacific Ocean origin via Bering Strait. Despite significant uncertainties in the different observations, this study has demonstrated the synergistic value of having multiple diverse datasets to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of Beaufort Gyre freshwater content variability. For example, Beaufort Gyre Observational System (BGOS) surveys clearly show the interannual increase in freshwater content, but without satellite or Ice‐Tethered Profiler measurements, it is not possible to resolve the seasonal cycle of freshwater content, which in fact is larger than the year‐to‐year variability, or the more subtle interannual variations.National Science Foundation. Grant Numbers: PLR‐1302884,OPP‐1719280, and OPP‐1845877, PLR‐1303644 and OPP‐1756100, OPP‐1756100, PLR‐1303644, OPP‐1845877, OPP‐1719280, PLR‐1302884 Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China. Grant Number: 41330960 Global Change Research Program of China. Grant Number: 2015CB953900 Ministry of Education, Korea Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) /Earth Observation Research Center (EORC) Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (MEXT) Stanback Postdoctoral Fellowship Russian Foundation for Basic Research. Grant Number: 17‐05‐00382 Presidium of Russian Academy of Sciences HYCOM NOPP. Grant Number: N00014‐15‐1‐2594 DOE. Grant Number: DE‐SC0014378 National Aeronautics and Space Administration Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada Woods Hole Oceanographic Institutio