doi:10.5194/os-10-967-2014 © Author(s) 2014. CC Attribution 3.0 License. The Rossby radius in the Arctic Ocean

• Main Authors: A. J. G. Nurser, S. Bacon
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Baffin Bay; Hudson; Hudson Bay; Baffin; Nansen Basin; Nordic Seas
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.683.5817; http://www.ocean-sci.net/10/967/2014/os-10-967-2014.pdf

Abstract. The first (and second) baroclinic deformation (or Rossby) radii are presented north of ∼ 60 ◦ N, focusing on deep basins and shelf seas in the high Arctic Ocean, the Nordic seas, Baffin Bay, Hudson Bay and the Canadian Arc-tic Archipelago, derived from climatological ocean data. In the high Arctic Ocean, the first Rossby radius increases from ∼ 5 km in the Nansen Basin to ∼ 15 km in the central Cana-dian Basin. In the shelf seas and elsewhere, values are low (1–7 km), reflecting weak density stratification, shallow wa-ter, or both. Seasonality strongly impacts the Rossby radius only in shallow seas, where winter homogenization of the water column can reduce it to below 1 km. Greater detail is seen in the output from an ice–ocean general circulation model, of higher resolution than the climatology. To assess the impact of secular variability, 10 years (2003–2012) of hydrographic stations along 150◦W in the Beaufort Gyre are also analysed. The first-mode Rossby radius increases over this period by ∼ 20 %. Finally, we review the observed scales of Arctic Ocean eddies. 1