Trend and interannual variability in southeast Greenland Sea Ice: Impacts on coastal Greenland climate variability

We describe the recent occurrence of a region of diminished sea ice cover or “notch” offshore of the Kangerdlugssuaq Fiord, the site of the largest tidewater glacier along Greenland's southeast coast. The notch's location is consistent with a topographically forced flux of warm water towar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical Research Letters
Main Authors: Moore, G. W. K., Straneo, F., Oltmanns, Marilena
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: AGU (American Geophysical Union) 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/45168/
https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/45168/1/Moore_et_al-2014-Geophysical_Research_Letters.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1002/2014GL062107
Description
Summary:We describe the recent occurrence of a region of diminished sea ice cover or “notch” offshore of the Kangerdlugssuaq Fiord, the site of the largest tidewater glacier along Greenland's southeast coast. The notch's location is consistent with a topographically forced flux of warm water toward the fiord, and the decrease of the sea ice cover is shown to be associated with a regional warming of the upper ocean that began in the mid‐1990s. Sea ice in the vicinity of the notch also exhibits interannual variability that is shown to be associated with a seesaw in surface temperature and sea ice between southeast and northeast Greenland that is not describable solely in terms of the North Atlantic Oscillation. We therefore argue that other modes of atmospheric variability, including the Lofoten Low, are required to fully document the changes to the climate that are occurring along Greenland's east coast.