Physical oceanography on yearly cruises to the central Greenland Sea between 1993 and 1996 ...

• Main Authors: Budéus, Gereon, Schneider, Wolfgang, Krause, Gunther
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 1998
• Subjects: CTD/Rosette; Multiple investigations; PK-ARK-XII; ARK-IX/1b; ARK-X/1; ARK-XI/2; Petr Kottsov; Polarstern; European subpolar ocean programme sea ice-ocean interactions ESOP; Joint Global Ocean Flux Study JGOFS; Physical Oceanography @ AWI AWI_PhyOce; Greenland; Greenland Sea; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.752260; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.752260

From observations on yearly cruises to the central Greenland Sea between 1993 and 1996, conclusions are drawn with respect to winter convection and bottom water renewal. The data indicate that winter convection was extremely weak after 1993, not even ventilating the intermediate waters. This is remarkable, since the salinities in the upper layers increased considerably between 1993 and 1995, thus providing presumably favorable conditions for winter convection. With the absence of deep reaching winter convective events, the temperatures in the deeper waters of the Greenland Gyre increased steadily by about 0.03 K between 1993 and 1996. We conclude from the development of mainly the thermal structure on a zonal transect that an explanation for the temperature increase can be given by a large-scale downward water movement of about 150 m/yr in the central Greenland Sea. The data indicate that this process is independent of changes in the dynamically induced density distribution. It is therefore possible that a ... : Supplement to: Budéus, Gereon; Schneider, Wolfgang; Krause, Gunther (1998): Winter convective events and bottom water warming in the Greenland Sea. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 103(C9), 18513-18527 ...