Enhanced eddy activity in the Beaufort Gyre in response to sea ice loss

• Published in: Nature Communications
• Main Authors: Armitage, Thomas W. K., Manucharyan, Georgy E., Petty, Alek A., Kwok, Ron, Thompson, Andrew F.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Nature Publishing Group 2020
• Subjects: Cryospheric science; Physical oceanography; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14449-z; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/PMC7005044

The Beaufort Gyre freshwater content has increased since the 1990s, potentially stabilizing in recent years. The mechanisms proposed to explain the stabilization involve either mesoscale eddy activity that opposes Ekman pumping or the reduction of Ekman pumping due to reduced sea ice–ocean surface stress. However, the relative importance of these mechanisms is unclear. Here, we present observational estimates of the Beaufort Gyre mechanical energy budget and show that energy dissipation and freshwater content stabilization by eddies increased in the late-2000s. The loss of sea ice and acceleration of ocean currents after 2007 resulted in enhanced mechanical energy input but without corresponding increases in potential energy storage. To balance the energy surplus, eddy dissipation and its role in gyre stabilization must have increased after 2007. Our results imply that declining Arctic sea ice will lead to an increasingly energetic Beaufort Gyre with eddies playing a greater role in its stabilization. This is a U.S. government work and not under copyright protection in the U.S.; foreign copyright protection may apply 2020. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Received 05 June 2018; Accepted 18 December 2019; Published 06 ...