Arctic; North Atlantic; freshwater budget; Geochemistry and Petrology; Geophysics; Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous); Space and Planetary Science; Oceanography
Abstract :
[en] The freshwater budget of the Arctic and sub-polar North Atlantic Oceans has been changing due, primarily, to increased river runoff, declining sea ice and enhanced melting of Arctic land ice. Since the mid-1990s this latter component has experienced a pronounced increase. We use a combination of satellite observations of glacier flow speed and regional climate modeling to reconstruct the land ice freshwater flux from the Greenland ice sheet and Arctic glaciers and ice caps for the period 1958-2016. The cumulative freshwater flux anomaly exceeded 6,300 ± 316 km3 by 2016. This is roughly twice the estimate of a previous analysis that did not include glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and which extended only to 2010. From 2010 onward, the total freshwater flux is about 1,300 km3/yr, equivalent to 0.04 Sv, which is roughly 40% of the estimated total runoff to the Arctic for the same time period. Not all of this flux will reach areas of deep convection or Arctic and Sub-Arctic seas. We note, however, that the largest freshwater flux anomalies, grouped by ocean basin, are located in Baffin Bay and Davis Strait. The land ice freshwater flux displays a strong seasonal cycle with summer time values typically around five times larger than the annual mean. This will be important for understanding the impact of these fluxes on fjord circulation, stratification, and the biogeochemistry of, and nutrient delivery to, coastal waters.
Disciplines :
Earth sciences & physical geography
Author, co-author :
Bamber, J L ; School of Geographical Sciences University of Bristol Bristol UK
Tedstone, A J ; School of Geographical Sciences University of Bristol Bristol UK
King, M D ; Byrd Polar Research Center Ohio State University Columbus OH USA
Howat, I M ; Byrd Polar Research Center Ohio State University Columbus OH USA
Enderlin, E M ; School of Earth and Climate Sciences University of Maine Orono ME USA
van den Broeke, M R ; Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht University Utrecht Netherlands
Noël, Brice ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de géographie > Climatologie et Topoclimatologie ; Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht University Utrecht Netherlands
Language :
English
Title :
Land Ice Freshwater Budget of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans: 1. Data, Methods, and Results.
ERC - European Research Council [BE] EU - European Union [BE] NERC - Natural Environment Research Council [GB] NESSC - Netherlands Earth System Science Centre [NL]
Funding text :
JLB was supported by European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 69418. JLB and AJT were supported by NERC grant NE/M021025/1. MvdB acknowledges support from the Netherlands Earth System Science Centre (NESSC). The authors would like to thank the editor, Fiamma Straneo and an anonymous referee for their constructive comments. The data set described here is available from the British Oceanographic Data Centre (www. bodc.ac.uk) and also directly from the corresponding author. The DOI is 10.5285/643aa9bc-bcd6–45ad-e053- 6c86abc07da0.
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