Search

Watermass transformation in the Irminger Sea, a key region for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, is influenced by atmospheric and oceanic variability. Strong wintertime atmospheric forcing in 2015 resulted in enhanced convection and the densification of the Irminger Sea. Deep convection persisted until 2018, even though winters following 2015 were mild. We show that this behavior can be attributed to an initially slow convergence of buoyancy, followed by more rapid convergence of buoyancy. This two-stage recovery, in turn, is consistent with restratification driven by baroclinic instability of the Irminger Current (IC), that flows around the basin. The initial, slow restratification resulted from the weak horizontal density gradients created by the widespread 2015 atmospheric heat loss. Faster restratification occurred once the IC recovered. This mechanism explains the delayed recovery of the Irminger Sea following a single extreme winter and has implications for the ventilation and overturning that occurs in the basin. Key Points Widespread buoyancy loss across the Irminger interior and Irminger Current (IC) delayed the recovery of the interior from strong cooling in 2015 Baroclinic instabilities shed from the IC are the dominant source of buoyancy restratifying the sub-surface Irminger interior It is important to consider changes in the IC when considering drivers of variability in convection, ventilation, and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation Plain Language Summary The Irminger Sea, between Greenland and Iceland, is known to be an important driver of variability in the global ocean circulation that regulates global climate. During the 2015 winter, the Irminger Sea experienced widespread cooling and buoyancy loss down to 1,000 m, resulting in deeper wintertime mixing than had been observed in the region for many years. This low buoyancy state and deep wintertime mixing persisted from 2015 to 2018, despite a return to average atmospheri

© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Li, F., Lozier, M. S., Holliday, N. P., Johns, W. E., Le Bras, I. A., Moat, B. I., Cunningham, S. A., & de Jong, M. F. Observation-based estimates of heat and freshwater exchanges from the subtropical North Atlantic to the Arctic. Progress in Oceanography, 197, (2021): 102640, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pocean.2021.102640., Continuous measurements from the OSNAP (Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program) array yield the first estimates of trans-basin heat and salinity transports in the subpolar latitudes. For the period from August 2014 to May 2018, there is a poleward heat transport of 0.50 ± 0.05 PW and a poleward salinity transport of 12.5 ± 1.0 Sv across the OSNAP section. Based on the mass and salt budget analyses, we estimate that a surface freshwater input of 0.36 ± 0.05 Sv over the broad subpolar-Arctic region is needed to balance the ocean salinity change created by the OSNAP transports. The overturning circulation is largely responsible for setting these heat and salinity transports (and the derived surface freshwater input) derived from the OSNAP array, while the gyre (isopycnal) circulation contributes to a lesser, but still significant, extent. Despite its relatively weak overturning and heat transport, the Labrador Sea is a strong contributor to salinity and freshwater changes in the subpolar region. Combined with trans-basin transport estimates at other locations, we provide new estimates for the time-mean surface heat and freshwater divergences over a wide domain of the Arctic-North Atlantic region to the north and south of the OSNAP line. Furthermore, we estimate the total heat and freshwater exchanges across the surface area of the extratropical North Atlantic between the OSNAP and the RAPID-MOCHA (RAPID Meridional Overturning Circulation and Heat-flux Array) arrays, by combining the cross-sectional transports with vertically-integrated ocean heat and salinity content. Comparisons with the air-sea heat and freshwater fluxes from atmospheric reanalysis products show an overall consistency, yet with notable differences in the magnitudes during the observation time period., F.L. and M.S.L. were supported by the National Science Foundation (OCE-1948335). W.E.J. was supported by the National Science Foundation grants RAPID (OCE-1332978 and OCE-1926008) and OSNAP (OCE-1756231 and OCE-1948198). I.A.L.B. was supported by the National Science Foundation (OCE-1756272 and OCE-2038481). B.M. was supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council for the RAPID-AMOC program and the ACSIS program (NE/N018044/1). S.A.C. and N.P.H. were supported by UK NERC National Capability programmes the Extended Ellett Line and CLASS (NE/R015953/1), NERC grants UK OSNAP (NE/K010875/1, NE/K010875/2, NE/K010700/1), UK OSNAP Decade (NE/T00858X/1, NE/T008938/1). S.A.C. received additional supports from the Blue-Action project (European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, grant 727852) and the iAtlantic project (European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, grant 210522255).

Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(8), (2020): 2393-2414, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0210.1., The Denmark Strait Overflow (DSO) is an important contributor to the lower limb of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Determining DSO formation and its pathways is not only important for local oceanography but also critical to estimating the state and variability of the AMOC. Despite prior attempts to understand the DSO sources, its upstream pathways and circulation remain uncertain due to short-term (3–5 days) variability. This makes it challenging to study the DSO from observations. Given this complexity, this study maps the upstream pathways and along-pathway changes in its water properties, using Lagrangian backtracking of the DSO sources in a realistic numerical ocean simulation. The Lagrangian pathways confirm that several branches contribute to the DSO from the north such as the East Greenland Current (EGC), the separated EGC (sEGC), and the North Icelandic Jet (NIJ). Moreover, the model results reveal additional pathways from south of Iceland, which supplied over 16% of the DSO annually and over 25% of the DSO during winter of 2008, when the NAO index was positive. The southern contribution is about 34% by the end of March. The southern pathways mark a more direct route from the near-surface subpolar North Atlantic to the North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW), and needs to be explored further, with in situ observations., This work was financially supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers OAC-1835640, OCE-1633124, OCE-1433448, and OCE-1259210.

Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(10), (2020): 2849-2871, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0086.1., The structure, transport, and seasonal variability of the West Greenland boundary current system near Cape Farewell are investigated using a high-resolution mooring array deployed from 2014 to 2018. The boundary current system is comprised of three components: the West Greenland Coastal Current, which advects cold and fresh Upper Polar Water (UPW); the West Greenland Current, which transports warm and salty Irminger Water (IW) along the upper slope and UPW at the surface; and the Deep Western Boundary Current, which advects dense overflow waters. Labrador Sea Water (LSW) is prevalent at the seaward side of the array within an offshore recirculation gyre and at the base of the West Greenland Current. The 4-yr mean transport of the full boundary current system is 31.1 ± 7.4 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1), with no clear seasonal signal. However, the individual water mass components exhibit seasonal cycles in hydrographic properties and transport. LSW penetrates the boundary current locally, through entrainment/mixing from the adjacent recirculation gyre, and also enters the current upstream in the Irminger Sea. IW is modified through air–sea interaction during winter along the length of its trajectory around the Irminger Sea, which converts some of the water to LSW. This, together with the seasonal increase in LSW entering the current, results in an anticorrelation in transport between these two water masses. The seasonality in UPW transport can be explained by remote wind forcing and subsequent adjustment via coastal trapped waves. Our results provide the first quantitatively robust observational description of the boundary current in the eastern Labrador Sea., A.P., R.S.P., F.B., D.J.T., and A.L.R. were funded by Grants OCE-1259618 and OCE-1756361 from the National Science Foundation. I.L.B, F.S., and J.H. were supported by U.S. National Science Foundation Grants OCE-1258823 and OCE-1756272. Mooring data from MA2 was funded by the European Union 7th Framework Programme (FP7 2007-2013) under Grant 308299 (NACLIM) and the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant 727852 (Blue-Action). J.K. and M.O. acknowledge EU Horizon 2020 funding Grants 727852 (Blue-action) and 862626 (EuroSea) and from the German Ministry of Research and Education (RACE Program). G.W.K.M. acknowledges funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

The goal of this project was to directly measure the dense water pathways upstream of the Denmark Strait in the Iceland Sea and compare the results to existing ideas about the dynamics of the circulation by deploying 45 acoustically tracked RAFOS floats over a two year time period (24-Jul-2013 to 29-May-2015). The floats were ballasted to drift at a target depth of 500m, recording pressure, temperature, and Times Of Arrivals (TOAs) every six hours or every 12 hours., This project was funded by the US National Science Foundation Grant OCE-1259210 and the Bjerknes.

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 Geophysical Research Letters 46(1), (2018): 293-302, doi:10.1029/2018GL080956., Ground‐breaking measurements from the ocean observatories initiative Irminger Sea surface mooring (60°N, 39°30′W) are presented that provide the first in situ characterization of multiwinter surface heat exchange at a high latitude North Atlantic site. They reveal strong variability (December 2014 net heat loss nearly 50% greater than December 2015) due primarily to variations in frequency of intense short timescale (1–3 days) forcing. Combining the observations with the new high resolution European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis 5 (ERA5) atmospheric reanalysis, the main source of multiwinter variability is shown to be changes in the frequency of Greenland tip jets (present on 15 days in December 2014 and 3 days in December 2015) that can result in hourly mean heat loss exceeding 800 W/m2. Furthermore, a new picture for atmospheric mode influence on Irminger Sea heat loss is developed whereby strongly positive North Atlantic Oscillation conditions favor increased losses only when not outweighed by the East Atlantic Pattern., We are grateful to Meric Srokosz and the two reviewers for helpful comments on this work. S. J. acknowledges the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council ACSIS programme funding (Ref. NE/N018044/1). M. O. acknowledges support from EU Horizon 2020 projects AtlantOS (grant 633211) and Blue Action (grant 727852). G. W. K. M. acknowledges support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Support for the Irminger Sea array of the ocean observatories initiative (OOI) came from the U.S. National Science Foundation. Thanks to the WHOI team and ships' officers and crew for the field deployments and to Nan Galbraith for processing the data and computing the air‐sea fluxes. Support for this processing, and making available and sharing the OOI data, came from the National Science Foundation under a Collaborative Research: Science Across Virtual Institutes grant (82164000) to R. A. W. Data used are available from the following sites: NOAA Climate Prediction Center NAO and EAP indices ftp://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/wd52dg/data/indices/tele_index.nh, ECMWF Reanalysis 5 (ERA5) https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/archive‐datasets/reanalysis/datasets/era5, and ocean observatories initiative Irminger Mooring https://ooinet.oceanobservatories.org/., 2019-06-18

Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 98 (2017): 737-752, doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0057.1., For decades oceanographers have understood the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) to be primarily driven by changes in the production of deep-water formation in the subpolar and subarctic North Atlantic. Indeed, current Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections of an AMOC slowdown in the twenty-first century based on climate models are attributed to the inhibition of deep convection in the North Atlantic. However, observational evidence for this linkage has been elusive: there has been no clear demonstration of AMOC variability in response to changes in deep-water formation. The motivation for understanding this linkage is compelling, since the overturning circulation has been shown to sequester heat and anthropogenic carbon in the deep ocean. Furthermore, AMOC variability is expected to impact this sequestration as well as have consequences for regional and global climates through its effect on the poleward transport of warm water. Motivated by the need for a mechanistic understanding of the AMOC, an international community has assembled an observing system, Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program (OSNAP), to provide a continuous record of the transbasin fluxes of heat, mass, and freshwater, and to link that record to convective activity and water mass transformation at high latitudes. OSNAP, in conjunction with the Rapid Climate Change–Meridional Overturning Circulation and Heatflux Array (RAPID–MOCHA) at 26°N and other observational elements, will provide a comprehensive measure of the three-dimensional AMOC and an understanding of what drives its variability. The OSNAP observing system was fully deployed in the summer of 2014, and the first OSNAP data products are expected in the fall of 2017., The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF; OCE-1259102, OCE-1259103, OCE-1259618, OCE-1258823, OCE-1259210, OCE-1259398, OCE-0136215, and OCE-1005697); the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); the WHOI Ocean and Climate Change Institute (OCCI), the WHOI Independent Research and Development (IRD) Program, and the WHOI Postdoctoral Scholar Program; the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC; NE/K010875/1, NE/K010700/1, R8-H12-85, FASTNEt NE/I030224/1, NE/K010972/1, NE/K012932/1, and NE/M018024/1); the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (NACLIM project, 308299 and 610055); the German Federal Ministry and Education German Research RACE Program; the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC; RGPIN 227438-09, RGPIN 04357, and RG-PCC 433898); Fisheries and Oceans Canada; the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC; 41521091, U1406401); the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China; the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER); the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS); the French National Institute for Earth Sciences and Astronomy (INSU); the French national program LEFE; and the French Oceanographic Fleet (TGIR FOF)., 2017-10-24