New Evidence Of Warming Propogating Towards Arctic Ocean - GRL

<1> The dramatic changes in the Arctic climate observed in recent years have generated an urgent need to investigate the Arctic Ocean’s heat budget. Mooring data and synoptic observations in the Fram Strait (FS) region have shown that increasing amounts of heat have been transported into the Arctic Ocean (AO) in recent times. Here we present results from observations conducted in the West Spitsbergen Current (WSC) in summers 2000–2005. The study was motivated by the strong warm anomalies seen in the Atlantic Water (AW) layer over a large area of the WSC, and changes in the WSC structure. We conclude that the warm signal was only approaching the FS, and we expect that high heat transport through the strait will continue and be even higher than during the last 6 years, mostly due to
increasing activity and temperature of the western branch of WSC. Citation: Walczowski, W., and J. Piechura (2006), New evidence of warming propagating toward the Arctic Ocean, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L12601, doi:10.1029/2006GL025872.

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<7> Our data show that the mean temperature of the Nordic Seas in June–July 2000–2005 was much higher in comparison with climatology (Figure 2), with differences as high as 1.5
C. The summers 2000–2005 were warmer than average, but considerable year-to-year differences were observed as well. Time series of measurements along the 76
300N parallel reveal a significant increase in the temperature and salinity of AW. T and S of AW, measured in summer at 200 m and averaged between longitude 009
and 012
E, have increased over 10 years by about 1
C and 0.06 PSU respectively, and have reached two minima (1997 and 2003) and two maxima (2001 and 2005) (Figure 3). The post-1997 high temperature and salinity correlate with the increase in heat transport through the FS reported by Schauer et al. <2004> for the 1997–2000. Since 2003, temperature and salinity increases also correlate with the higher heat flux through the FS recorded in 2003–2005 (A. Beszczynska-Mo¨ller, personal communication, 2005).

<8> Horizontal distributions of T, S, heat content, and their anomalies have also revealed temporal variability in AW properties. The coldest summer was 2003 and the warmest was 2005. Moreover, the heat content anomalies in the AW layer (Figure 4) show that the heat transport was pulsating in nature. Positive heat anomalies usually had the structure of an anticyclonic eddy, whereas negative ones displayed a cyclonic circulation pattern. In summer 2005 the AWoccupying the entire investigated region was unusually warm and saline. Two anticyclonic anomalies over the submarine ridges were especially intensive. The heat content in the AW layer has been increasing since 2001 (Figure 5), and since 2003 this rise has been very rapid. At the same time the volume of AW has decreased slightly, which means that the increasing heat content during the last 2 years was due to the higher temperature of AW.

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<16> When the anomalies observed in summer 2005 at 76
–77
N and 73
–74
N pass through the FS, they will carry large amounts of heat into the AO. In the future, the Svalbard Branch inflow should become apparent at existing and planned current meter arrays at the slope of the eastern Eurasian Basin. The pathway of the Yermak Plateau branch is not so clear; it will probably continue along the edge of the plateau, turn east, and join the Svalbard Branch.

<17> In this paper we have concentrated on the temperature and heat content of the AW layer, but a significant rise in AW salinity has been observed as well (Figures 3 and 7). At a time when the freshwater outflow from the AO into the Nordic Seas intensifies, salt input into this dominant source area for the North Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation may be very important for the maintenance of Thermohaline Circulation.

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And that phrase is "abrupt climate change."

The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
--Yeats, "The Second Coming"

In the man-centered universe of the time, one can appreciate the anguish of the Reverend, Mr. Kirby discovering the Age of Reptiles: "Who can think that a being of unbounded power, wisdom, and goodness, should create a world merely for the habitation of a race of monsters, without a single, rational being in it to serve and glorify him ?" This is the wounded outcry of the human ego as it fails to discover its dominance among the beasts of the past. Even more tragically, it learns that the world supposedly made for its enjoyment has existed for untold eons entirely indifferent to its coming. The chill vapors of time and space are beginning to filter under the closed door of the human intellect.

"The Immense Journey"

Who is Loren Eiseley?

who wrote many essays, at least as good as that bit from hatrack. You should find a copy of "Immense Journey," I think you'll like it. I've seen a few of those essays on the web, but for some reason I can't find the links today.

the Arctic is gone.. not from just the north.. but the South too. Pacific is big.. don't know. Perhaps we should ask the Salmon.. who have moved north to cooler waters. They seem to know about global warming...

SW of the Hawaiian chain, but not too far away.

I'd give the new national monument 20 years at the outside. After that, welcome to Bleachworld.

it will change. Good that there is a sanctuary. But I don't know why they bother to do such a thing when they seem so gun ho on global warming.

it will change. Good that there is a sanctuary. But I don't know why they bother to do such a thing when they seem so gun ho on global warming.