Impacts of a weakening subpolar North Atlantic influence on the European Slope Current, North Sea inflow and primary production ...

• Main Authors: Clark, Matthew, Marsh, Robert, Harle, James
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences 2023
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.57757/iugg23-2370; https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5018381

<!--!introduction!--> The subpolar North Atlantic provides a strong geostrophic eastward inflow to the European shelf seas, which varies across timescales with basin-scale warming and cooling. Lagrangian particle back-tracking experiments have suggested that this is a main contributor to the northward flow of the European Slope Current. As the subpolar North Atlantic has warmed by approximately 2°C over the past 4 decades, geostrophic inflow to the European shelf edge and shelf seas has decreased in strength by up to 10 Sv (nearly 50%) due to weakened meridional density gradients across subpolar latitudes. There has been a corresponding 2-3 Sv (50-70%) drop in northward along-slope Slope Current transport. Atlantic inflow to the Slope Current has become more subtropical in provenance, slower, warmer and shallower, since 1997. The North Sea is consequently freshening with decreasing Atlantic inflow, being more influenced by Baltic outflow and riverine inputs. Using a 1D physics-biology coupled model, ... : The 28th IUGG General Assembly (IUGG2023) (Berlin 2023) ...