Upwelling of Atlantic Water in Barrow Canyon, Chukchi Sea

• Published in: Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
• Main Authors: Li, Shutong, Lin, Peigen, Dou, Tingfeng, Xiao, Cunde, Itoh, Motoyo, Kikuchi, Takashi, Qin, Dahe
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: American Geophysical Union 2022
• Subjects: upwelling; Atlantic Water; Sea Ice; Barrow Canyon; Chukchi Sea; Chukchi; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/29155

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2022. 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 127(3), (2022): e2021JC017839, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JC017839. Using long-term moorings data together with wind and sea ice measurements, we document the characteristics and variations of upwelling in Barrow Canyon and investigate the upwelled Atlantic Water (AW) on the Chukchi Sea shelf and how it impacts the ice cover. Driven by strong northeasterly winds, upwelling occurs more often in the cold months, and the occurrence tends to increase interannually since 2001. Over the 12-year mooring record at the mouth of Barrow Canyon, roughly 10% of the upwelling events can drive AW onto the Chukchi Sea shelf. Both AW and non-AW upwelling events have more occurrence and stronger strength in the cold months, but do not present a significant interannual trend. These variations are associated with the northeasterly winds. Comparing to the non-AW upwelling, the AW upwelling is generally characterized by more vertical displacement of the AW layer at the mouth of Barrow Canyon, and stronger up-canyon volume and heat transport. In the ice-covered period, these two types of upwelling have different consequences for forming polynyas on the shelf. Under similar wind forcing, the ice reduction appears confined in the coastal region in the non-AW upwelling events, while during AW upwelling events, the sea ice declines dramatically in the shelf interior with 15% more ice loss. It elucidates that the heat carried by the upwelled AW plays a considerable role in modulating the ice cover in the shelf interior. This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China under Grant 2018YFC1406104; and the National Nature Science Foundation of China under grants NSFC 41425003 and NSFC 41971084 (S. Li, T. Dou, C. Xiao, and D. Qin); and the National Science ...