Seasonal variability of the warm Atlantic water layer in the vicinity of the Greenland shelf break
Abstract The warmest water reaching the east and west coast of Greenland is found between 200 and 600m. While important for melting Greenland’s outlet glaciers, limited winter observations of this layer prohibit determination of its seasonality. To address this, temperature data from Argo profiling...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.670.9525 http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/371748/1/grl52347.pdf |
| Summary: | Abstract The warmest water reaching the east and west coast of Greenland is found between 200 and 600m. While important for melting Greenland’s outlet glaciers, limited winter observations of this layer prohibit determination of its seasonality. To address this, temperature data from Argo profiling floats, a range of sources within the World Ocean Database, and unprecedented coverage from marine-mammal borne sensors have been analyzed for the period 2002–2011. A significant seasonal range in temperature (~1-2°C) is found in the warm layer, in contrast to most of the surrounding ocean. The phase of the seasonal cycle exhibits considerable spatial variability, with the warmest water found near the eastern and southwestern shelf break toward the end of the calendar year. High-resolution oceanmodel trajectory analysis suggests the timing of the arrival of the year’s warmest water is a function of advection time from the subduction site in the Irminger Basin. 1. |
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