AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Editors' Highlight

Recent trends in Arctic Ocean mass distribution

Changes in Arctic Ocean circulation are important to understanding seasonal weather patterns and decades-long trends in Arctic sea ice extent and thickness. To monitor these changes, Morison et al. (2007) examined the time-varying gravity field data from the Arctic produced by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission between 2002 and 2006. The authors used this data to track changes in Arctic Ocean bottom pressure and thus ocean circulation caused by variations in sea surface height and by fluctuations in density. Comparisons of GRACE data with new direct measurements of Arctic Ocean bottom pressure not only confirm the accuracy and utility of GRACE measurements in the Artic Ocean, but also show a declining trend in bottom pressure corresponding to mass changes due to decreasing upper ocean salinities near the North Pole and in the Arctic's Makarov Basin. The spatial distribution and magnitude of these trends suggest that Arctic Ocean circulation is shifting back from a clockwise circulation pattern that characterized the 1990s to a counterclockwise pattern prevalent prior to the 1990s.

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