Cross‐shelf exchanges between the East Greenland shelf and interior seas

• Published in: Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
• Main Authors: Duyck, E., de Jong, M.F.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Arctic; Greenland; Eirik Ridge; Cape Farewell; East Greenland; Ice Sheet; Iceland
• Online Access: https://www.vliz.be/imisdocs/publications/57/393957.pdf

Increasing freshwater fluxes from the Greenland ice sheet and the Arctic to the Subpolar NorthAtlantic could cause a freshening of deep convection regions and affect the overturning circulation. However,freshwater pathways from the Greenland shelf to interior seas and deep convection regions are not fullyunderstood. We investigate exchanges of liquid freshwater between the east Greenland shelf and neighboringseas using drifter data from five deployments carried out at different latitudes along the east Greenland shelfin 2019, 2020, and 2021, as well as satellite data and an atmospheric reanalysis. We compute Ekman transportfrom winds and geostrophic velocity from satellite altimetry at the shelfbreak and identify the Blosseville Basinand Cape Farewell as areas favorable to cross-shelf exchanges. We further investigate exchange processes inthese regions using drifter data. In the Blosseville Basin, drifters are brought off-shelf toward the Iceland Seaand into the interior of the Basin. As they are advected downstream, they re-enter the shelf and are driventoward the coast. At Cape Farewell, the wind appears to be the main driver, although on one occasion we foundevidence of an eddy turning drifters away from the shelf. The drifters brought off-shelf at Cape Farewell mostlycontinue around Eirik Ridge, where they re-enter the West Greenland Current. Overall, the identified exportover the east Greenland shelf is limited, small scale, and intermittent, thus unlikely to flux large amount ofliquid freshwater into the interior, though exchange processes could enhance mixing in the near-shelf region