Variability of sea ice extent in Baffin Bay over the last millennium

• Main Authors: Grumet, Nancy S, Wake, Cameron P, Mayewski, Paul A, Zielinski, Gregory A, Whitlow, Sallie I, Koerner, Roy M, Fisher, David, Woollett, James M
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository 2001
• Subjects: Arctic; Baffin Bay; Baffin Island; Penny Ice Cap; Baffin; Climate change; Ice cap; ice core; North Atlantic; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://scholars.unh.edu/earthsci_facpub/556; http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A%3A1010794528219

Comparison of an ice core glaciochemical time-series developed from the Penny Ice Cap (PIC), Baffin Island and monthly sea-ice extent reveals a statistically significant inverse relationship between changes in Baffin Bay spring sea-ice extent and Penny Ice Cap sea-salt concentrations for the period 1901–1990 AD.Empirical orthogonal function analysis demonstrates the joint behavior between changes in PIC sea-salt concentrations, sea-ice extent, and changes in North Atlantic atmospheric circulation. Our results suggest that sea-salt concentrations in snow preserved on the PIC reflect local to regional springtime sea-ice coverage. The PIC sea-salt record/sea-ice relationship is further supported by decadal and century scale comparison with other paleoclimate records of eastern Arctic climate change over the last700 years. Our sea-salt record suggests that, while the turn of the century was characterized by generally milder sea-ice conditions in Baffin Bay, the last few decades of sea-ice extentlie within Little Ice Age variability and correspond to instrumental records of lower temperatures in the Eastern Canadian Arctic over the past three decades.