Recent changes in the Greenland-Scotland overflow-derived water transport inferred from hydrographic observations in the southern Irminger Sea

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Sarafanov, Artem, Falina, Anastasia, Mercier, Herle, Lherminier, Pascale, Sokov, Alexey
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Geophysical Union 2009
• Subjects: Greenland; Irminger Sea; Cape Farewell; East Greenland; Labrador Sea
• Online Access: https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/2009/publication-6633.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1029/2009GL038385; https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00000/6633/

Recent decadal changes (1955-2007) in the baroclinic transport (TBC) of the Deep Western Boundary Current (DWBC) carrying the Greenland-Scotland overflow-derived waters along the East Greenland slope are quantified from a set of hydrographic sections in vicinity of Cape Farewell. The updated historical record of TBC shows clear decadal variability (+/- 2-2.5 Sv) with the transport minima in the 1950s and mid-1990s, maximum in the early 1980s and moderate-to-high transport in the 2000s. Since the mid-1990s, the DWBC TBC has increased by similar to 2 Sv (significant at the 99.9% level), which constitute similar to 20% of the mean absolute transport (9.0 Sv) as obtained from three cruises in 2002-2006. The DWBC TBC anomalies negatively correlate (R = -0.80) with thickness anomalies of the Labrador Sea Water (LSW) at its origin implying a close association, albeit not necessarily causative, between the DWBC transport east of Greenland and the LSW production.