Spinning ice floes reveal intensification of mesoscale eddies in the western Arctic Ocean
Under-ice eddies are prevalent in the major circulation system in the western Arctic Ocean, the Beaufort Gyre. Theoretical studies hypothesize that the eddy-driven overturning and the ice-ocean drag are crucial mechanisms of the gyre equilibration in response to atmospheric winds. However, due to se...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:9054753 2023-05-15T14:47:05+02:00 Spinning ice floes reveal intensification of mesoscale eddies in the western Arctic Ocean Manucharyan, Georgy E. Lopez-Acosta, Rosalinda Wilhelmus, Monica M. 2022-04-29 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9054753/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35488008 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10712-z en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9054753/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35488008 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10712-z © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . CC-BY Sci Rep Article Text 2022 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10712-z 2022-05-08T00:49:05Z Under-ice eddies are prevalent in the major circulation system in the western Arctic Ocean, the Beaufort Gyre. Theoretical studies hypothesize that the eddy-driven overturning and the ice-ocean drag are crucial mechanisms of the gyre equilibration in response to atmospheric winds. However, due to severe weather conditions and limitations of remote sensing instruments, there are only sparse eddy observations in the ice-covered Arctic Ocean. Hence, the evolution of the under-ice eddy field, its impact on the gyre variability, and their mutual response to the ongoing Arctic warming remain uncertain. Here, we infer the characteristics of the under-ice eddy field by establishing its tight connection to the angular velocities of isolated spinning sea ice floes in marginal ice zones. Using over two decades of satellite observations of marginal ice zones in the western Arctic Ocean, we identified and tracked thousands of floes and used idealized eddy modeling to infer the interannual evolution of the eddy energetics underneath the ice. We find that the eddy field is strongly correlated to the strength of the Beaufort Gyre on interannual timescales, which provides the major observational evidence consistent with the hypothesis of the gyre equilibration by eddies. The inferred trends over the past two decades signify that the gyre and its eddy field have been intensifying as the sea ice cover has been declining. Our results imply that with continuing sea ice decline, the eddy field and the Beaufort Gyre will keep intensifying and leading to enhanced transport of freshwater and biogeochemical tracers. Text Arctic Arctic Ocean Sea ice PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Arctic Ocean Scientific Reports 12 1 |
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Article Manucharyan, Georgy E. Lopez-Acosta, Rosalinda Wilhelmus, Monica M. Spinning ice floes reveal intensification of mesoscale eddies in the western Arctic Ocean |
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Article |
description |
Under-ice eddies are prevalent in the major circulation system in the western Arctic Ocean, the Beaufort Gyre. Theoretical studies hypothesize that the eddy-driven overturning and the ice-ocean drag are crucial mechanisms of the gyre equilibration in response to atmospheric winds. However, due to severe weather conditions and limitations of remote sensing instruments, there are only sparse eddy observations in the ice-covered Arctic Ocean. Hence, the evolution of the under-ice eddy field, its impact on the gyre variability, and their mutual response to the ongoing Arctic warming remain uncertain. Here, we infer the characteristics of the under-ice eddy field by establishing its tight connection to the angular velocities of isolated spinning sea ice floes in marginal ice zones. Using over two decades of satellite observations of marginal ice zones in the western Arctic Ocean, we identified and tracked thousands of floes and used idealized eddy modeling to infer the interannual evolution of the eddy energetics underneath the ice. We find that the eddy field is strongly correlated to the strength of the Beaufort Gyre on interannual timescales, which provides the major observational evidence consistent with the hypothesis of the gyre equilibration by eddies. The inferred trends over the past two decades signify that the gyre and its eddy field have been intensifying as the sea ice cover has been declining. Our results imply that with continuing sea ice decline, the eddy field and the Beaufort Gyre will keep intensifying and leading to enhanced transport of freshwater and biogeochemical tracers. |
format |
Text |
author |
Manucharyan, Georgy E. Lopez-Acosta, Rosalinda Wilhelmus, Monica M. |
author_facet |
Manucharyan, Georgy E. Lopez-Acosta, Rosalinda Wilhelmus, Monica M. |
author_sort |
Manucharyan, Georgy E. |
title |
Spinning ice floes reveal intensification of mesoscale eddies in the western Arctic Ocean |
title_short |
Spinning ice floes reveal intensification of mesoscale eddies in the western Arctic Ocean |
title_full |
Spinning ice floes reveal intensification of mesoscale eddies in the western Arctic Ocean |
title_fullStr |
Spinning ice floes reveal intensification of mesoscale eddies in the western Arctic Ocean |
title_full_unstemmed |
Spinning ice floes reveal intensification of mesoscale eddies in the western Arctic Ocean |
title_sort |
spinning ice floes reveal intensification of mesoscale eddies in the western arctic ocean |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9054753/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35488008 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10712-z |
geographic |
Arctic Arctic Ocean |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean |
genre |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Sea ice |
op_source |
Sci Rep |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9054753/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35488008 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10712-z |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
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CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10712-z |
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Scientific Reports |
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12 |
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