Berlin 2012 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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UP: Fachverband Umweltphysik

UP 7: Cryosphere, Hydrosphere and Oceanography

UP 7.3: Hauptvortrag

Mittwoch, 28. März 2012, 15:45–16:15, HFT-FT 131

Oceanographic measurements in Fram Strait – a gateway to the Arctic Ocean — •Florian Greil, Agnieszka Beszczynska-Möller, and Ursula Schauer — Alfred Wegener Institut (AWI) für Polar- und Meeresforschung, D-27515 Bremerhaven, Germany

The Fram Strait is a 500 km wide passage between Greenland and Svalbard. It is is the unique deep water connection between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic. Arctic surface waters flow southward in the East Greenland Current and carry sea ice out of the Arctic. The West Spitsbergen Current (WSC) flows northward and brings relatively warm and saline waters into the Arctic. The WSC is the northern extension the Norwegian Atlantic Current which in turns originates in the Gulf Stream. They are the only oceanic source of heat for the Arctic Ocean and may thus affect the sea ice cover. Other possible mechanisms for the declining ice cover will also be presented.

The Alfred Wegener Institute maintains a an array of moored instruments at 78.8^∘N since the mid 1990s. The instruments acquire temperature and current data over the whole year. Our data reveals a warming (of approximately 1^∘C from 1997 to now) of the Atlantic water inflow. On monthly to decadal time scales, we also observe a great variability of the oceanic fluxes.