Wintertime ocean conditions over the southern Weddell Sea continental shelf, Antarctica

During the austral winter of 2007 a Weddell Seal tagged with a miniaturized conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) instrument travelled over the central southern Weddell Sea continental shelf. The instrument yielded 750 CTD profiles, 250 of them to the sea floor. The data show a full depth flow of wat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical Research Letters
Main Authors: Nicholls, Keith, Boehme, Lars, Biuw, Martin, Fedak, Mike A.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Geophysical Union 2008
Subjects:
Marine Sciences
Weddell Sea
Austral
Weddell
Antarc*
Antarctica
Weddell Seal
Online Access:http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/6903/
https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/6903/1/Nicholls_et_al_revision.pdf
Description
Summary:During the austral winter of 2007 a Weddell Seal tagged with a miniaturized conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) instrument travelled over the central southern Weddell Sea continental shelf. The instrument yielded 750 CTD profiles, 250 of them to the sea floor. The data show a full depth flow of water onto the shelf via a sill at the shelf break (74°S 44°W). The warmth from the core of the flow was able to maintain the surface mixed layer above the freezing point, resulting in a band of reduced ice-production. An estimate of the on-shelf flux suggests that this flow accounts for most of the estimated 3 Sv of water draining from the southern Weddell Sea continental shelf.

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