Environmental Conditions in the Labrador Sea in 2004 by
The 15th annual occupation of the AR7W Labrador Sea section in May 2004 encountered warm and saline conditions at upper and intermediate levels, continuing a decade-long warming trend following several years of particularly cold conditions in the early 1990s. Changes in temperature and salinity aver...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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2005
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.579.2202 http://archive.nafo.int/open/sc/2005/scr05-007.pdf |
| Summary: | The 15th annual occupation of the AR7W Labrador Sea section in May 2004 encountered warm and saline conditions at upper and intermediate levels, continuing a decade-long warming trend following several years of particularly cold conditions in the early 1990s. Changes in temperature and salinity averaged over the upper 150 m during this 15-year period amount to about 1°C and 0.1, respectively. The winter of 2003-2004 was particularly mild, giving the second lowest sea-air heat flux in the west-central Labrador Sea since 1987. Annual average 2004 sea surface temperature was more than 1°C warmer than normal in the west-central Labrador Sea. These changes reflect a northward shift of normal regional patterns of heat flux and sea surface temperature by several degrees of latitude. Introduction and Summary Labrador Sea hydrographic conditions depend on a balance between heat lost to the atmosphere and heat gained from warm and saline Atlantic Waters carried northward into the Labrador Sea by the West Greenland Current. Severe winters under high North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) conditions lead to greater cooling: in exceptional cases |
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