The Arctic Ocean’s Beaufort Gyre

• Published in: Annual Review of Marine Science
• Main Authors: Timmermans, Mary-Louise, Toole, John M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Annual Reviews 2022
• Subjects: Arctic Ocean; Beaufort Gyre; Circulation; Sea ice; Freshwater; Ocean heat content; Arctic; Climate change; National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/29735

© The Author(s), 2023. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Timmermans, M.-L., & Toole, J. The Arctic Ocean’s Beaufort Gyre. Annual Review of Marine Science, 15(1), (2023): 223-248, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-marine-032122-012034. The Arctic Ocean's Beaufort Gyre is a dominant feature of the Arctic system, a prominent indicator of climate change, and possibly a control factor for high-latitude climate. The state of knowledge of the wind-driven Beaufort Gyre is reviewed here, including its forcing, relationship to sea-ice cover, source waters, circulation, and energetics. Recent decades have seen pronounced change in all elements of the Beaufort Gyre system. Sea-ice losses have accompanied an intensification of the gyre circulation and increasing heat and freshwater content. Present understanding of these changes is evaluated, and time series of heat and freshwater content are updated to include the most recent observations. Support was provided by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs and the Office of Naval Research.