HR: 0800h
AN: OS41A-0468    [Abstracts]
TI: Seasonal and Interannual Variability of the Arctic Ocean Upwelling
AU: * Yang, J
EM: jyang@whoi.edu
AB: Ekman layer transport in the Arctic Ocean is a main mechanism for redistributing fresh water in the upper Arctic Ocean. Its divergence, i.e., upwelling, is an important process for heat and salt fluxes to the surface mixed layer. The daily Ekman layer transport and the upwelling field in the Arctic Ocean have been calculated by using both satellite and buoy data from 1978 to the present. The upwelling varies profoundly over the whole Arctic Basin on the seasonal time scale. In the Beaufort Sea in the winter season, there are strong offshore transport and upwelling along the shelf regions and downwelling in the interior region. The winter upwelling field was reversed in the summer. This seasonal cycle appears to explain an unexpected seasonal salinity variation in the upper Beaufort Sea in 1996-98 when IOEB buoy data showed that the salinity was maximum in the summer and minimum in the winter. The upwelling field also varies significantly on interannual and decadal time scales in response to changes in the atmosphere and ice motion. Such low-frequency changes affect the heat and salt flux to the mixed layer and the hydrographic structure, including the state of the Arctic halocline.
DE: 4207 Arctic and Antarctic oceanography
DE: 4215 Climate and interannual variability (3309)
DE: 4283 Water masses
DE: 4540 Ice mechanics and air/sea/ice exchange processes
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting