• Login
    About WHOAS
    View Item 
    •   WHOAS Home
    • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    • View Item
    •   WHOAS Home
    • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of WHOASCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesKeywordsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesKeywords

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Wintertime water mass transformation in the western Iceland and Greenland Seas

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Article (6.853Mb)
    Date
    2021-07-14
    Author
    Huang, Jie  Concept link
    Pickart, Robert S.  Concept link
    Bahr, Frank B.  Concept link
    McRaven, Leah T.  Concept link
    Xu, Fanghua  Concept link
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Citable URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1912/27736
    As published
    https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JC016893
    DOI
    10.1029/2020JC016893
    Keyword
     Overflows; Nordic Seas; Ocean convection 
    Abstract
    Hydrographic and velocity data from a 2018 winter survey of the western Iceland and Greenland Seas are used to investigate the ventilation of overflow water feeding Denmark Strait. We focus on the two general classes of overflow water: warm, saline Atlantic-origin Overflow Water (AtOW) and cold, fresh Arctic-origin Overflow Water (ArOW). The former is found predominantly within the East Greenland Current (EGC), while the latter resides in the interior of the Iceland and Greenland Seas. Progressing north to south, the properties of AtOW in the EGC are modified diapycnally during the winter, in contrast to summer when along-isopycnal mixing dominates. The water column response to a 10-days cold-air outbreak was documented using repeat observations. During the event, the northerly winds pushed the freshwater cap of the EGC onshore, and convection modified the water at the seaward edge of the current. Lateral transfer of heat and salt from the core of AtOW in the EGC appears to have influenced some of this water mass transformation. The long-term evolution of the mixed layers in the interior was investigated using a 1-D mixing model. This suggests that, under strong atmospheric forcing, the densest component of ArOW can be ventilated in this region. Numerous anti-cyclonic eddies spawned from the EGC were observed during the winter survey, revealing that these features can play differing roles in modifying/prohibiting the open-ocean convection.
    Description
    Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2021. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 126(8), (2021): e2020JC016893, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JC016893.
    Collections
    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    Suggested Citation
    Huang, J., Pickart, R. S., Bahr, F., McRaven, L. T., & Xu, F. (2021). Wintertime water mass transformation in the western Iceland and Greenland Seas. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 126(8), e2020JC016893.
     
    All Items in WHOAS are protected by original copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. WHOAS also supports the use of the Creative Commons licenses for original content.
    A service of the MBLWHOI Library | About WHOAS
    Contact Us | Send Feedback | Privacy Policy
    Core Trust Logo