Recent changes in the freshwater composition east of Greenland

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: de Steur, Laura, Pickart, Robert S., Torres, Daniel J., Valdimarsson, Héðinn
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: John Wiley & Sons 2015
• Subjects: East Greenland Current; Freshwater; Pacific Water; Sea-ice melt; Nordic Seas; Arctic; Bering Strait; Greenland; Pacific; Denmark Strait; East Greenland; east greenland current; Fram Strait; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/7314

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 42 (2015): 2326–2332, doi:10.1002/2014GL062759. Results from three hydrographic surveys across the East Greenland Current between 2011 and 2013 are presented with focus on the freshwater sources. End-member analysis using salinity, δ18O, and nutrient data shows that while meteoric water dominated the freshwater content, a significant amount of Pacific freshwater was present near Denmark Strait with a maximum in August 2013. While in 2011 and 2012 the net sea ice melt was dominated by brine, in 2013 it became close to zero. The amount of Pacific freshwater observed near Denmark Strait in 2013 is as large as the previous maximum in 1998. This, together with the decrease in meteoric water and brine, suggests a larger contribution from the Canadian Basin. We hypothesize that the increase of Pacific freshwater is the result of enhanced flux through Bering Strait and a shorter pathway of Pacific water through the interior Arctic to Fram Strait. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7 2007–2013) under grant agreement 308299, NACLIM Project, and from the U.S. National Science Foundation under grant OCE-085041. 2015-10-01