Changes in Arctic Ocean Climate Evinced through Analysis of IPY 2007–2008 Oceanographic Observations

• Main Author: Stroh, J. N.
• Other Authors: Lebedev, Nikolay, Bloshkina, Ekatrina, Yaremchuk, Max, Francis, Oceana, Panteleev, Gleb, Kirillov, Sergei
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Technology & Engineering / Agriculture; bisacsh:TEC003000; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Climate change; International Polar Year; IPY
• Online Access: https://openresearchlibrary.org/viewer/28f5e87e-ed6f-4c49-ac5c-bece8b007ef1; https://openresearchlibrary.org/ext/api/media/28f5e87e-ed6f-4c49-ac5c-bece8b007ef1/assets/external_content.pdf

Full-depth hydrographical surveys conducted in 2007–2009 during the International Polar Year (IPY) collaboration provide an accurate snapshot of the Arctic Ocean (AO) hydrography at a time when the Arctic Ocean Oscillation (AOO) index was highest in recent record. We construct pan-Arctic temperature and salinity (T/S) reference states from these data using variational optimal interpolation and discuss some key differences between the 2007–2009 state and a similarly constructed climatology from historical 1950–1994 Russian archives. These data provide a recent, known reference state for both qualitative and quantitative future AO climate change studies. Furthermore, we present an analysis of sea-surface height (SSH) and upper-layer circulation constructed from the IPY data via 4DVar data assimilation and use them to examine circulation and freshwater source changes visible during IPY.