Water mass composition in Fram Strait determined from the combination of 129I and 236U: Changes between 2016, 2018, and 2019 ...
Changes in the provenance and composition of waters exported from the Arctic Ocean have the potential to impact large-scale ocean circulation processes in the sub-polar North Atlantic. The main conveyor of waters from the Arctic Ocean to lower latitudes is the East Greenland Current (EGC), flowing s...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
ETH Zurich
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000574353 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/574353 |
| Summary: | Changes in the provenance and composition of waters exported from the Arctic Ocean have the potential to impact large-scale ocean circulation processes in the sub-polar North Atlantic. The main conveyor of waters from the Arctic Ocean to lower latitudes is the East Greenland Current (EGC), flowing southward through Fram Strait. It is therefore crucial to determine and monitor the composition of the EGC, a mixture of polar waters of different origins. Here we present a pilot study on the potential of the long-lived anthropogenic radionuclides 129I and 236U as tracers of the EGC water mass composition, based on a time series of 236U and 129I concentrations measured across Fram Strait in the years 2016, 2018, and 2019. The overall spatial distribution of 236U and 129I was similar among the three sampling years, but a decrease in concentration was observed in the upper water column of the EGC. The observed changes could only partly be attributed to the transient nature of the radionuclide signals, but instead ... : Frontiers in Marine Science, 9 ... |
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