Arctic-Subarctic Ocean Fluxes (eBook)

Defining the Role of the Northern Seas in Climate

Robert R. Dickson, Jens Meincke, Peter Rhines (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: PDF

2008 | 2008
X, 736 Seiten
Springer Netherland (Verlag)
978-1-4020-6774-7 (ISBN)

Infos

We are only now beginning to understand the climatic impact of the remarkable events that are now occurring in subarctic waters. Researchers, however, have yet to agree upon a predictive model that links change in our northern seas to climate. This volume brings together the body of evidence needed to develop climate models that quantify the ocean exchanges through subarctic seas, measure their variability, and gauge their impact on climate.

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The Ocean-Atmosphere-Cryosphere s- tem of the Arctic is of unique importance to the World, its climate and its peoples and is changing rapidly; it is no accident that the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) was the first comprehensive regional assessment of climate-impact to be conducted. Reporting in 2005, ACIA concluded that changes in climate and in ozone and UV radiation levels were likely to affect every aspect of life in the Arctic. In effect, the ACIA process was essentially one of prediction: projecting that large climatic changes are likely to occur over the 21st century and documenting what might be their projected impacts. Although the ACIA Report was based on the most modern synthesis of obser- tions, modelling and analysis by hundreds of Arctic scientists, it notes with clarity that its conclusions are only a first step in what must be a continuing process. nd Reporting in November 2007, the 2 International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP II) has recently made much the same point. To make its proj- tions with higher confidence, --- to take the crucial second step in other words, -- both reports plainly state the need for a more complete and detailed understanding of the complex processes, interactions, and feedbacks that drive and underlie 'change' at high northern latitudes, including particularly the long-term processes of circulation and exchange in our northern seas where much of the decadal 'm- ory' for Arctic change must reside.

Inhalt

A. The Subarctic seas as a source of Arctic change. 1. The inflow of Atlantic water, heat, and salt to the Nordic Seas across the Greenland-Scotland Ridge 2. Flux of heat, salt and mass to the Arctic Ocean via Norway Coast and Barents Sea 3. Flux of heat, salt and mass to the Arctic Ocean via Fram Strait. Eberhard Fahrbach 4. The debate about the importance of ocean heat transport to climate 5. Long-term variability of Atlantic water inflow to the Northern Seas: insights from model experiments B. The freshwater flux from Northern seas as a moderator of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation 6. Freshwater storage in the Northern Ocean: spatial distribution and temporal variation 7. Modelling the sea ice export through Fram Strait 8. Arctic outflows across the Canadian Polar Shelf 9. The freshwater flux from Hudson Strait 10. Freshwater fluxes east of Greenland 11. Changing ideas about how freshwater impacts the AMOC at local, regional and global scales 12. Constraints on calculating the balances of heat, mass and salt for the Arctic Mediterranean 13. Variability and change in the atmospheric branch of the Arctic hydrologic cycle 14. Simulating the terms in the Arctic hydrological budget. Peili Wu, Helmuth Haak 15. Is the Conveyor Belt Threatened by Arctic Ocean Fresh Water Outflow? 16. Long term variability of the freshwater export from the Arctic Ocean as seen in model results C. The dense water overflows from Northern Seas as drivers of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. 17. The overflow flux east of Iceland: variability, origins, forcing and fate 18. The overflow flux west of Iceland: variability, origins and forcing 19. Tracer evidence of DSOW origins and variability 20. Transformation and fate of the overflows in the subpolar North Atlantic 21. Modelling of dense overflows D. The 'receiving volume' of the northern North Atlantic. 22. Satellite evidence of change in the Northern Gyre 23. The history of Labrador Sea Water 24. Convective- to gyrescale-dynamics, the first SeaGlider campaigns, 2003-5 25. The 'footprint' of subgrid convective events and their climatic importance 26. North Atlantic Deep Water transformation in the Labrador Sea, recirculation through the subpolar gyre, and discharge to the subtropics 27. Accessing the inaccessible: towards an understanding of Subarctic shelf processes E. Invited lectures 28. The bursting of the Baltic and its impact: the 'European Lake Agassiz' Lennart Bengtsson, Director, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, 1991 - 2000. 29. Trends in the Climatic Forcing of Northern Seas'. Jim Hurrell, Director, Climate Dynamics Division, NCAR F. Conclusions. 30. How would ASOF define the cutting-edge questions for the IPY across its domain? In the light of these, what is an appropriate ocean-observing system for climate in subarctic seas? ASOF Group.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 3.3.2008
• Zusatzinfo: X, 736 p.
• Verlagsort: Dordrecht
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften ► Geografie / Kartografie
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften ► Hydrologie / Ozeanografie
• Themenwelt: Technik
• Schlagworte: Arctic change • Arctic ocean • Atlantic Ocean • Atlantic thermohaline circulation • climate change • coast • meteorology • North Atlantic • ocean • Ocean fluxes • Satellite • scale • sea ice • Temperature • Wind
• ISBN-10: 1-4020-6774-7 / 1402067747
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4020-6774-7 / 9781402067747