Transport of Pacific water into the Canada Basin and the formation of the Chukchi Slope Current

• Published in: Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
• Main Authors: Spall, Michael A., Pickart, Robert S., Li, Min, Itoh, Motoyo, Lin, Peigen, Kikuchi, Takashi, Qi, Yiquan
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: John Wiley & Sons 2018
• Subjects: Canada Basin; Halocline; Ventilation; Chukchi Sea; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Barrow Canyon; Beaufort Slope; Bering Strait; Canada; Chukchi Shelf; Pacific; Beaufort Sea; canada basin; Chukchi
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/10793

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 123 (2018): 7453-7471, doi:10.1029/2018JC013825. A high‐resolution regional ocean model together with moored hydrographic and velocity measurements is used to identify the pathways and mechanisms by which Pacific water, modified over the Chukchi shelf, crosses the shelf break into the Canada Basin. Most of the Pacific water flowing into the Arctic Ocean through Bering Strait enters the Canada Basin through Barrow Canyon. Strong advection allows the water to cross the shelf break and exit the shelf. Wind forcing plays little role in this process. Some of the outflowing water from Barrow Canyon flows to the east into the Beaufort Sea; however, approximately 0.4 to 0.5 Sv turns to the west forming the newly identified Chukchi Slope Current. This transport occurs at all times of year, channeling both summer and winter waters from the shelf to the Canada Basin. The model indicates that approximately 75% of this water was exposed to the mixed layer within the Chukchi Sea, while the remaining 25% was able to cross the shelf during the stratified summer before convection commences in late fall. We view the Ό(0.5) Sv of the Chukchi Slope Current as replacing Beaufort Gyre water that would have come from the east in the absence of the cross-topography flow in Barrow Canyon. The weak eastward flow on the Beaufort slope is also consistent with the local disruption of the Beaufort Gyre by the Barrow Canyon outflow. Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management Grant Number: M12AC00008; DOC | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Grant Number: NA16OAR4310248; National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant Numbers: PLR-1415489, OCE-1533170 2019-04-22