Atlantic Subpolar Gyre Warming – Impacts on Greenland Offshore Waters? by

• Main Author: M. Stein
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: Baffin Island; Canada; Fyllas Bank; Greenland; Nuuk; Baffin; Davis Strait; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.484.1509; http://archive.nafo.int/open/sc/2005/scr05-001.pdf

Sea surface temperature anomalies in the region of the North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre indicate cold conditions in the 1980s and warming from the mid-1990s onwards. Peak warming was observed during October 2003. This is consistent with air temperature measurements from Nuuk/Greenland which document that 2003 was the warmest year since 1950. The sub-surface ocean hydrographic properties off West Greenland follow the observed warming of the Subpolar Gyre, and show a significant upward trend which is considerably higher than the mean warming trend as documented for the North Atlantic basin. Warming of the West Greenland Current amounted to 0.096°C/year during 1983-2004. Long-term observations from Fyllas Bank/West Greenland (1964-2004) reveal that during the 1960s similar warm sub-surface conditions were present in the West Greenland Current system, however the recent years of the new century indicate record warming which exceeds the autumn observations during those times. Data from a newly formed oceanographic section across Davis Strait and the West Greenland shelf, show increased transport of the West Greenland Current through the 330m km wide passage between Holsteinsborg/West Greenland and Baffin Island/Canada. Ocean properties during 2004 were more saline and up to 2K warmer-than-normal during autumn. Volume transports across this passage, computed for the 2004 data and compared to historic Canadian data, reveal that the transports based on the geostrophic method alone are + 2.4 Sverdrup (1 Sv =