HR: 17:15h
AN: C54A-05    [Abstracts]
TI: Freshwater Fluxes from the Arctic into the North Atlantic Ocean: 1979-2002 Model Results
AU: Williams, C E
EM: cewillia@nps.edu
AF: Naval Postgraduate School Department of Oceanography, 833 Dyer Road, Monterey, CA 93943 United States
AU: * Maslowski, W
EM: maslowsk@nps.edu
AF: Naval Postgraduate School Department of Oceanography, 833 Dyer Road, Monterey, CA 93943 United States
AU: Clement, J C
EM: jlclemen@nps.edu
AF: Naval Postgraduate School Department of Oceanography, 833 Dyer Road, Monterey, CA 93943 United States
AU: Semtner, A J
EM: sbert@nps.edu
AF: Naval Postgraduate School Department of Oceanography, 833 Dyer Road, Monterey, CA 93943 United States
AB: The recent warming trend in the Arctic region and its future projections has direct implications for this region's hydrological cycle and the global thermohaline circulation. A quantitative analysis of the freshwater export from the Arctic Ocean through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA) and Fram Strait into the active convection regions of the sub-polar North Atlantic is presented using model output from 1979 to 2002. Results from our pan-Arctic coupled ice-ocean model show that in comparison with the freshwater export through Denmark Strait, the CAA is the major contributor and a direct pathway of freshwater into the northern North Atlantic. The increased freshwater flux through the CAA, found in this study, supports the earlier reports on the significant freshening in the Labrador Sea. This increase in freshwater export from the Arctic is a good indicator of the sea ice cover reduction, which has intensified in the last several years. The consequence of these recent changes on the freshwater export into the North Atlantic is yet to be determined.
DE: 9315 Arctic region
DE: 4207 Arctic and Antarctic oceanography
DE: 4215 Climate and interannual variability (3309)
DE: 1635 Oceans (4203)
SC: Cryosphere [C]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting