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Beaufort Gyre

About: Beaufort Gyre is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 311 publications have been published within this topic receiving 17433 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the control of the vertical circulation in the northern seas, and the potential for altering it, by considering the budgets and storage of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean and in the convective regions to the south.
Abstract: Salinity stratification is critical to the vertical circulation of the high-latitude ocean. We here examine the control of the vertical circulation in the northern seas, and the potential for altering it, by considering the budgets and storage of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean and in the convective regions to the south. We find that the present-day Greenland and Iceland seas, and probably also the Labrador Sea, are rather delicately poised with respect to their ability to sustain convection. Small variations in the fresh water supplied to the convective gyres from the Arctic Ocean via the East Greenland Current can alter or stop the convection in what may be a modern analog to the halocline catastrophes proposed for the distant past. The North Atlantic salinity anomaly of the 1960s and 1970s is a recent example; it must have had its origin in an increased fresh water discharge from the Arctic Ocean. Similarly, the freshening and cooling of the deep North Atlantic in recent years is a likely manifestation of the increased transfer of fresh water from the Arctic Ocean into the convective gyres. Finally, we note that because of the temperature dependence of compressibility, a slight salinity stratification in the convective gyres is required to efficiently ventilate the deep ocean.

1,627 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe the Great Salinity Anomaly as an advective event, traceable around the Atlantic subpolar gyre for over 14 years from its origins north of Iceland in the mid-to-late 1960s until its return to the Greenland Sea in 1981-1982.

1,182 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A new gridded ocean climatology, the Polar Science Center Hydrographic Climatology (PHC), has been created that merges the 1998 version of the World Ocean Atlas with the new regional Arctic Ocean Atlas.
Abstract: A new gridded ocean climatology, the Polar Science Center Hydrographic Climatology (PHC), has been created that merges the 1998 version of the World Ocean Atlas with the new regional Arctic Ocean Atlas. The result is a global climatology for temperature and salinity that contains a good description of the Arctic Ocean and its environs. Monthly, seasonal, and annual average products have been generated. How the original datasets were prepared for merging, how the optimal interpolation procedure was performed, and characteristics of the resulting dataset are discussed, followed by a summary and discussion of future plans.

947 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jun 1981
TL;DR: The cold upper halcoline of the Arctic Ocean is maintained by large-scale lateral advection from the adjoining continental shelves, where dense and saline shelf water is produced during freezing; the salinization of the water column is especially pronounced in certain areas of persistent ice divergence as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The cold upper halcoline of the Arctic Ocean is maintained by large-scale lateral advection from the adjoining continental shelves, where dense and saline shelf water is produced during freezing; the salinization of the water column is especially pronounced in certain areas of persistent ice divergence. Estimates show the annual rate at which the dense shelf water feeds into the Polar Basin is probably in the neighborhood of 2.5 x 106 m3 s−1; this is of the same order as the inflow of warm and saline water from the Atlantic. A consequence of this process is that the halocline must be a heat sink for the underlying Atlantic water, thereby shielding the ice cover from an upward heat flux. The Atlantic water is thus linked rather directly to the enormous shelf seas that border the Polar Basin. Proposed massive river diversions in the Arctic could, by increasing the shelf salinities and driving a deeper flow into the interior, cause a thinning of the halocline and place the Atlantic water in more direct contact with the surface mixed layer.

717 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors synthesize an understanding of the Arctic's large-scale freshwater cycle, combining terrestrial and oceanic observations with insights gained from the ERA-40 reanalysis and land surface and ice-ocean models.
Abstract: This paper synthesizes our understanding of the Arctic's large-scale freshwater cycle. It combines terrestrial and oceanic observations with insights gained from the ERA-40 reanalysis and land surface and ice-ocean models. Annual mean freshwater input to the Arctic Ocean is dominated by river discharge (38%), inflow through Bering Strait (30%), and net precipitation (24%). Total freshwater export from the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic is dominated by transports through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (35%) and via Fram Strait as liquid (26%) and sea ice (25%). All terms are computed relative to a reference salinity of 34.8. Compared to earlier estimates, our budget features larger import of freshwater through Bering Strait and larger liquid phase export through Fram Strait. While there is no reason to expect a steady state, error analysis indicates that the difference between annual mean oceanic inflows and outflows (∼8% of the total inflow) is indistinguishable from zero. Freshwater in the Arctic Ocean has a mean residence time of about a decade. This is understood in that annual freshwater input, while large (∼8500 km3), is an order of magnitude smaller than oceanic freshwater storage of ∼84,000 km3. Freshwater in the atmosphere, as water vapor, has a residence time of about a week. Seasonality in Arctic Ocean freshwater storage is nevertheless highly uncertain, reflecting both sparse hydrographic data and insufficient information on sea ice volume. Uncertainties mask seasonal storage changes forced by freshwater fluxes. Of flux terms with sufficient data for analysis, Fram Strait ice outflow shows the largest interannual variability.

566 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20221
202119
202022
201917
201822
201717