Rabe Benjamin

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Last Name
Rabe
First Name
Benjamin
ORCID
0000-0001-5794-9856

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Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Article
    Arctic Ocean basin liquid freshwater storage trend 1992–2012
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2014-02-12) Rabe, Benjamin ; Karcher, Michael ; Kauker, Frank ; Schauer, Ursula ; Toole, John M. ; Krishfield, Richard A. ; Pisarev, Sergey ; Kikuchi, Takashi ; Su, J.
    Freshwater in the Arctic Ocean plays an important role in the regional ocean circulation, sea ice, and global climate. From salinity observed by a variety of platforms, we are able, for the first time, to estimate a statistically reliable liquid freshwater trend from monthly gridded fields over all upper Arctic Ocean basins. From 1992 to 2012 this trend was 600±300 km3 yr−1. A numerical model agrees very well with the observed freshwater changes. A decrease in salinity made up about two thirds of the freshwater trend and a thickening of the upper layer up to one third. The Arctic Ocean Oscillation index, a measure for the regional wind stress curl, correlated well with our freshwater time series. No clear relation to Arctic Oscillation or Arctic Dipole indices could be found. Following other observational studies, an increased Bering Strait freshwater import to the Arctic Ocean, a decreased Davis Strait export, and enhanced net sea ice melt could have played an important role in the freshwater trend we observed.
  • Article
    The transpolar drift as a source of riverine and shelf-derived trace elements to the central Arctic Ocean
    (American Geophysical Union, 2020-04-08) Charette, Matthew A. ; Kipp, Lauren ; Jensen, Laramie T. ; Dabrowski, Jessica S. ; Whitmore, Laura M. ; Fitzsimmons, Jessica N. ; Williford, Tatiana ; Ulfsbo, Adam ; Jones, Elizabeth M. ; Bundy, Randelle M. ; Vivancos, Sebastian M. ; Pahnke, Katharina ; John, Seth G. ; Xiang, Yang ; Hatta, Mariko ; Petrova, Mariia V. ; Heimbürger, Lars-Eric ; Bauch, Dorothea ; Newton, Robert ; Pasqualini, Angelica ; Agather, Alison ; Amon, Rainer M. W. ; Anderson, Robert F. ; Andersson, Per S. ; Benner, Ronald ; Bowman, Katlin ; Edwards, R. Lawrence ; Gdaniec, Sandra ; Gerringa, Loes J. A. ; González, Aridane G. ; Granskog, Mats A. ; Haley, Brian ; Hammerschmidt, Chad R. ; Hansell, Dennis A. ; Henderson, Paul B. ; Kadko, David C. ; Kaiser, Karl ; Laan, Patrick ; Lam, Phoebe J. ; Lamborg, Carl H. ; Levier, Martin ; Li, Xianglei ; Margolin, Andrew R. ; Measures, Christopher I. ; Middag, Rob ; Millero, Frank J. ; Moore, Willard S. ; Paffrath, Ronja ; Planquette, Helene ; Rabe, Benjamin ; Reader, Heather ; Rember, Robert ; Rijkenberg, Micha J. A. ; Roy-Barman, Matthieu ; van der Loeff, Michiel Rutgers ; Saito, Mak A. ; Schauer, Ursula ; Schlosser, Peter ; Sherrell, Robert M. ; Shiller, Alan M. ; Slagter, Hans ; Sonke, Jeroen E. ; Stedmon, Colin ; Woosley, Ryan J. ; Valk, Ole ; van Ooijen, Jan ; Zhang, Ruifeng
    A major surface circulation feature of the Arctic Ocean is the Transpolar Drift (TPD), a current that transports river‐influenced shelf water from the Laptev and East Siberian Seas toward the center of the basin and Fram Strait. In 2015, the international GEOTRACES program included a high‐resolution pan‐Arctic survey of carbon, nutrients, and a suite of trace elements and isotopes (TEIs). The cruises bisected the TPD at two locations in the central basin, which were defined by maxima in meteoric water and dissolved organic carbon concentrations that spanned 600 km horizontally and ~25–50 m vertically. Dissolved TEIs such as Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Hg, Nd, and Th, which are generally particle‐reactive but can be complexed by organic matter, were observed at concentrations much higher than expected for the open ocean setting. Other trace element concentrations such as Al, V, Ga, and Pb were lower than expected due to scavenging over the productive East Siberian and Laptev shelf seas. Using a combination of radionuclide tracers and ice drift modeling, the transport rate for the core of the TPD was estimated at 0.9 ± 0.4 Sv (106 m3 s−1). This rate was used to derive the mass flux for TEIs that were enriched in the TPD, revealing the importance of lateral transport in supplying materials beneath the ice to the central Arctic Ocean and potentially to the North Atlantic Ocean via Fram Strait. Continued intensification of the Arctic hydrologic cycle and permafrost degradation will likely lead to an increase in the flux of TEIs into the Arctic Ocean.
  • Preprint
    An assessment of Arctic Ocean freshwater content changes from the 1990s to the 2006-2008 period
    ( 2010-12-10) Rabe, Benjamin ; Karcher, Michael ; Schauer, Ursula ; Toole, John M. ; Krishfield, Richard A. ; Pisarev, Sergey ; Kauker, Frank ; Gerdes, Rudiger ; Kikuchi, Takashi
    Unprecedented summer-season sampling of the Arctic Ocean during the period 2006−2008 makes possible a quasi-synoptic estimate of liquid freshwater (LFW) inventories in the Arctic Ocean basins. In comparison to observations from 1992−1999, LFW content relative to a salinity of 35 in the layer from the surface to the 34 isohaline increased by 8400 ± 2000 km3 in the Arctic Ocean (water depth greater than 500m). This is close to the annual export of freshwater (liquid and solid) from the Arctic Ocean reported in the literature. Observations and a model simulation show regional variations in LFW were both due to changes in the depth of the lower halocline, often forced by regional wind-induced Ekman pumping, and a mean freshening of the water column above this depth, associated with an increased net sea ice melt and advection of increased amounts of river water from the Siberian shelves. Over the whole Arctic Ocean, changes in the observed mean salinity above the 34 isohaline dominated estimated changes in LFW content; the contribution to LFW change by bounding isohaline depth changes was less than a quarter of the salinity contribution, and non-linear effects due to both factors were negligible.