Assessing the Influence of Water Constituents on the Radiative Heating of Laptev Sea Shelf Waters ...

• Main Authors: Soppa, Mariana A., Pefanis, Vasileios, Hellmann, Sebastian, Losa, Svetlana N., Hölemann, Jens, Martynov, Fedor, Heim, Birgit, Janout, Markus A., Dinter, Tilman, Rozanov, Vladimir, Bracher, Astrid
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: ETH Zurich 2019
• Subjects: Radiative transfer modeling; Remote sensing; MERIS; Heat budget; Optically active water constituents; CDOM; TSM; Arctic; laptev; Laptev Sea; lena river
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000344716; http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/344716

The presence of optically active water constituents is known to attenuate the light penetration in the ocean and impact the ocean heat content. Here, we investigate the influence of colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) and total suspended matter (TSM) on the radiative heating of the Laptev Sea shelf waters. The Laptev Sea region is heavily influenced by the Lena River, one of the largest river systems in the Arctic region. We simulate the radiative heating by using a coupled atmosphere-ocean radiative transfer model (RTM) and in situ measurements from the TRANSDRIFT XVII expedition carried out in September 2010. The results indicate that CDOM and TSM have significant influence on the energy budget of the Laptev Sea shelf waters, absorbing most of the solar energy in the first 2 m of the water column. In the station with the highest CDOM absorption (aCDOM(443) = 1.77 m−1) ~43% more energy is absorbed in the surface layer compared to the station with the lowest aCDOM(443) (~0.2 m−1), which translates to an ... : Frontiers in Marine Science, 6 ...