Warming of Atlantic Water in two west Spitsbergen fjords over the last century (1912-2009)

Warming of Atlantic Water in two west Spitsbergen fjords over the last century (1912-2009)

The recently observed warming of west Spitsbergen fjords has led to anomalous sea-ice conditions and has implications for the marine ecosystem. We investigated long-term trends of maximum temperature of Atlantic Water (AW) in two west Spitsbergen fjords. The data set is composed of more than 400 oce...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polar research 2013-01, Vol.32 (1), p.11206-14
Main Authors: Pavlov, Alexey K., Tverberg, Vigdis, Ivanov, Boris V., Nilsen, Frank, Falk-Petersen, Stig, Granskog, Mats A.
Format: Article
Language:eng
Subjects:
Atlantic Water
Colleges & universities
ERA reanalysis
Full text
Geofag: 450
Geosciences: 450
Heat
Ice
Marine
Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400
Mathematics and natural science: 400
Ocean circulation
Oceanography
Oceanography: 452
Oceans
Oseanografi: 452
Svalbard
Temperature
Time series
VDP
warming
West Spitsbergen Current
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Summary:The recently observed warming of west Spitsbergen fjords has led to anomalous sea-ice conditions and has implications for the marine ecosystem. We investigated long-term trends of maximum temperature of Atlantic Water (AW) in two west Spitsbergen fjords. The data set is composed of more than 400 oceanographic stations for Isfjorden and Grønfjorden (78.1°N), spanning from 1876 to 2009. Trends throughout the last century (1912-2009) indicate an increase of 1.9°C and 2.1°C in the maximum temperature during autumn for Isfjorden and Grønfjorden, respectively. A recent warming event in the beginning of the 21st century is found to be more than 1°C higher than the second warmest period in the time series. Mean sea-level pressure (MSLP) data from ERA-40 and ERA-Interim data sets produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and mean temperature in the core of the West Spitsbergen Current (WSC) at the Sørkapp Section along 76.3°N were used to explain the variability of the maximum temperature. A correlation analysis confirmed previous findings, showing that variability in the oceanography of the fjords can be explained mainly by two external factors: AW temperature variability in the WSC and regional patterns of the wind stress field. To take both processes into consideration, a multiple regression model accounting for temperature in the WSC core and MSLP over the area was developed. The predicted time series shows a reasonable agreement with observed maxima temperature in Isfjorden for the period 1977-2009 (N=24), with a statistically significant multiple correlation coefficient of 0.60 (R 2 =0.36) at P
ISSN:1751-8369
0800-0395
1751-8369