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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 33, L12601, doi:10.1029/2006GL025872, 2006

New evidence of warming propagating toward the Arctic Ocean

Waldemar Walczowski

Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Sopot, Poland


Jan Piechura

Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Sopot, Poland


Abstract

The dramatic changes in the Arctic climate observed in recent years have generated an urgent need to investigate the Arctic Ocean's heat budget. Mooring data and synoptic observations in the Fram Strait (FS) region have shown that increasing amounts of heat have been transported into the Arctic Ocean (AO) in recent times. Here we present results from observations conducted in the West Spitsbergen Current (WSC) in summers 2000–2005. The study was motivated by the strong warm anomalies seen in the Atlantic Water (AW) layer over a large area of the WSC, and changes in the WSC structure. We conclude that the warm signal was only approaching the FS, and we expect that high heat transport through the strait will continue and be even higher than during the last 6 years, mostly due to increasing activity and temperature of the western branch of WSC.

Received 27 January 2006; accepted 9 May 2006; published 16 June 2006.

Index Terms: 4207 Oceanography: General: Arctic and Antarctic oceanography (9310, 9315); 4215 Oceanography: General: Climate and interannual variability (1616, 1635, 3305, 3309, 4513); 4512 Oceanography: Physical: Currents; 4962 Paleoceanography: Thermohaline.

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Citation: Walczowski, W., and J. Piechura (2006), New evidence of warming propagating toward the Arctic Ocean, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L12601, doi:10.1029/2006GL025872.