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AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Keywords

  • Arctic
  • climate change
  • West Spitsbergen Current

Index Terms

  • Oceanography: General: Arctic and Antarctic oceanography
  • Oceanography: General: Climate and interannual variability
  • Oceanography: Physical: Currents
  • Oceanography: Physical: Eddies and mesoscale processes

Abstract

Pathways of the Greenland Sea warming

Waldemar Walczowski

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

Jan Piechura

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

Progressive warming of the West Spitsbergen Current (WSC) has been observed since 2004. During summer 2006 temperature and salinity of the core of Atlantic Water (AW) reached the highest ever observed by the Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences (IOPAS) values. The structure of the WSC, the heat content and the extent of AW in the Fram Strait (FS) region has also changed. Temperature changes resulted from the upstream warming of the Norwegian-Atlantic Current (NwAC); the structure of the WSC and its heat content were modified by the northward advection of large mesoscale eddies observed within the western branch of the WSC in summer 2005. These changes may have large impacts on the Arctic Ocean (AO) climate and ecosystem.

Received 12 March 2007; accepted 1 May 2007; published 30 May 2007.

Citation: Walczowski, W., and J. Piechura (2007), Pathways of the Greenland Sea warming, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L10608, doi:10.1029/2007GL029974.

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