"Increasing amount of Arctic Ocean deep waters in the Greenland Sea," by R. Somavilla, U. Schauer & G. Budéus, GRL (2013); doi: 10.1002/grl.50775

Geophysical Research Letters, (2013) in press; doi: 10.1002/grl.50775

Increasing amount of Arctic Ocean deep waters in the Greenland Sea

R. Somavilla, U. Schauer and G. Budéus

Abstract

In the last three decades, deep convection has come to a halt in the Greenland Sea. Hydrographic data reveal that during this period temperature and salinity in the deep Greenland Sea have increased at mean rates without precedent in the last 100 years, and these trends are among the highest in the global deep ocean. The origin of these changes is identified as the advection of Arctic Ocean deep waters and the necessary transports to explain them are calculated (0.440.09 Sv). Despite the fact that the deep Greenland Sea hardly covers 0.05% of the global surface, the resulting trends constitutes 0.3% of the World Ocean heat content increase per unit area of earth's surface and 0.1% of the global sea level rise. These results suggest that changes of the deep Arctic Mediterranean [see wikipedia link below for explanation of "mediterranean"] and their contribution to the global budgets need to be addressed.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50775/abstract

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_sea_%28oceanography%29