Articles | Volume 21, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/os-21-241-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/os-21-241-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
28 Jan 2025
Research article |
| 28 Jan 2025
| 28 Jan 2025
Circulation of Baffin Bay and Hudson Bay waters on the Labrador shelf and into the subpolar North Atlantic
Institute of Oceanography, CEN, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Nicholas P. Foukal
Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, University of Georgia, Savannah, GA, USA
Eleanor Frajka-Williams
Institute of Oceanography, CEN, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
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This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Ocean Science (OS).
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Deep ocean mixing in the North Atlantic helps power major currents, but it is weakening as the surface warms. We used a high-resolution ocean model and separate experiments that added either extra heat loss, extra wind, or both during Greenland storm events. Extra heat loss caused most of the deep mixing, but strong winds also helped by mixing salty water upward and removing the fresh surface layer early in winter. This wind effect may slow the future decline of deep mixing.
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Deep ocean mixing in the North Atlantic helps power major currents, but it is weakening as the surface warms. We used a high-resolution ocean model and separate experiments that added either extra heat loss, extra wind, or both during Greenland storm events. Extra heat loss caused most of the deep mixing, but strong winds also helped by mixing salty water upward and removing the fresh surface layer early in winter. This wind effect may slow the future decline of deep mixing.
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Understanding how heat moves through the ocean is crucial to predicting future climate change confidently. This requires accurate records of heat transport throughout the ocean, but these are challenging to obtain by direct ocean observation. Here, we combine in situ and satellite-based observations to generate estimates of meridional heat transport for the period 2004–2020 at 3-month resolution across the Atlantic Ocean with improved accuracy compared to existing indirectly inferred estimates.
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Understanding meltwater circulation around Greenland is crucial as it could influence climate variability but difficult as data are scarce. Here, we use 34 surface drifters to evaluate satellite-derived surface currents and show that satellite data recover the general structure of the flow and can recreate the pathways of particles around the southern tip of Greenland. This result permits a wide range of work to proceed looking at long-term changes in the circulation of the region since 1993.
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Short summary
This study uses drifters – instruments that follow surface ocean currents – to investigate the pathways of Arctic origin waters that enter the North Atlantic west of Greenland. It shows that these waters remain close to the coast as they flow over the Labrador shelf and only spread into the open ocean south of the Labrador Sea. These results contribute to better understanding how the North Atlantic will be affected by additional freshwater from Greenland and the Arctic in the coming decades.
This study uses drifters – instruments that follow surface ocean currents – to investigate the...
