Dynamics of pCO2and related air-ice CO2fluxes in the Arctic coastal zone (Amundsen Gulf, Beaufort Sea)

The bowhead whale is the only baleen whale endemic to the Arctic and is well adapted to this environment. Bowheads live near the polar ice edge for much of the year and although sea ice dynamics are not the only driver of their annual migratory movements, it likely plays a key role. Given the intrinsic variability of open water and ice, one might expect bowhead migratory plasticity to be high and linked to this proximate environmental factor. Here, through a network of underwater passive acoustic recorders, we document the first known occurrence of bowheads overwintering in what is normally their summer foraging grounds in the Amundsen Gulf and eastern Beaufort Sea. The underlying question is whether this is the leading edge of a phenological shift in a species' migratory behaviour in an environment undergoing dramatic shifts due to climate change.

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Evidence for microbial attenuation of particle flux in the Amundsen Gulf and Beaufort Sea: elevated hydrolytic enzyme activity on sinking aggregates

Polar Biology ◽

10.1007/s00300-011-1015-0 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 34 (12) ◽

pp. 2007-2023 ◽

Cited By ~ 33

Author(s):

Colleen T. E. Kellogg ◽

Shelly D. Carpenter ◽

Alisha A. Renfro ◽

Amélie Sallon ◽

Christine Michel ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Enzyme Activity ◽

Particle Flux ◽

Hydrolytic Enzyme ◽

Beaufort Sea ◽

Amundsen Gulf

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Increasing Multiyear Sea Ice Loss in the Beaufort Sea: A New Export Pathway for the Diminishing Multiyear Ice Cover of the Arctic Ocean

10.1002/essoar.10509833.1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

David Gareth Babb ◽

Ryan J. Galley ◽

Stephen E. L. Howell ◽

Jack Christopher Landy ◽

Julienne Christine Stroeve ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Arctic Ocean ◽

Beaufort Sea ◽

Ice Cover ◽

The Arctic ◽

Export Pathway ◽

The Arctic Ocean ◽

Multiyear Ice

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Inorganic carbon fluxes on the Mackenzie Shelf of the Beaufort Sea

10.5194/bg-2017-318 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Jacoba Mol ◽

Helmuth Thomas ◽

Paul G. Myers ◽

Xianmin Hu ◽

Alfonso Mucci

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Inorganic Carbon ◽

Dissolved Inorganic Carbon ◽

Beaufort Sea ◽

Total Alkalinity ◽

The Arctic ◽

Surface Mixed Layer ◽

Saturation State ◽

Carbon Transfer ◽

Mackenzie Shelf

Abstract. The Mackenzie Shelf in the southeastern Beaufort Sea is a region that has experienced large changes in the past several decades as warming, sea-ice loss, and increased river discharge have altered carbon cycling. Upwelling and downwelling events are common on the shelf, caused by strong, fluctuating along-shore winds, resulting in cross-shelf Ekman transport, and an alternating estuarine and anti-estuarine circulation. Downwelling carries inorganic carbon and other remineralization products off the shelf and into the deep basin for possible long-term storage in the world oceans. Upwelling carries dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and nutrient-rich waters from the Pacific-origin upper halocline layer (UHL) onto the shelf. Profiles of DIC and total alkalinity (TA) taken in August and September of 2014 are used to investigate the cycling of inorganic carbon on the Mackenzie Shelf. The along-shore transport of water and the cross-shelf transport of inorganic carbon are quantified using velocity field output from a simulation of the Arctic and Northern Hemisphere Atlantic (ANHA4) configuration of the Nucleus of European Modelling of the Ocean (NEMO) framework. A strong upwelling event prior to sampling on the Mackenzie Shelf is analyzed and the resulting influence on the carbonate system, including the saturation state of waters with respect to aragonite and pH, is investigated. TA and the oxygen isotope ratio of water (δ18O) are used to examine water-mass distributions in the study area and to investigate the influence of Pacific Water, Mackenzie River freshwater, and sea-ice melt on carbon dynamics and air-sea fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the surface mixed layer. Understanding carbon transfer in this seasonally dynamic environment is key to quantify the importance of Arctic shelf regions to the global carbon cycle and provide a basis for understanding how it will respond to the aforementioned climate-induced changes.

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Geological and geotechnical conditions of the Beaufort Sea coastal zone, Arctic Canada

Coastal Lowlands ◽

10.1007/978-94-017-1064-0_7 ◽

1989 ◽

pp. 121-129

Author(s):

P. J. Kurfurst ◽

S. R. Dallimore

Keyword(s):

Coastal Zone ◽

Beaufort Sea ◽

Arctic Canada

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A 50 % increase in the mass of terrestrial particles delivered by the Mackenzie River into the Beaufort Sea (Canadian Arctic Ocean) over the last 10 years

Biogeosciences ◽

10.5194/bg-12-3551-2015 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 12 (11) ◽

pp. 3551-3565 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

D. Doxaran ◽

E. Devred ◽

M. Babin

Keyword(s):

Organic Carbon ◽

Arctic Ocean ◽

Suspended Solids ◽

Beaufort Sea ◽

Freshwater Discharge ◽

The Arctic ◽

Field Observations ◽

The Arctic Ocean ◽

Arctic Rivers ◽

Mackenzie River

Abstract. Global warming has a significant impact on the regional scale on the Arctic Ocean and surrounding coastal zones (i.e., Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Norway and Russia). The recent increase in air temperature has resulted in increased precipitation along the drainage basins of Arctic rivers. It has also directly impacted land and seawater temperatures with the consequence of melting permafrost and sea ice. An increase in freshwater discharge by main Arctic rivers has been clearly identified in time series of field observations. The freshwater discharge of the Mackenzie River has increased by 25% since 2003. This may have increased the mobilization and transport of various dissolved and particulate substances, including organic carbon, as well as their export to the ocean. The release from land to the ocean of such organic material, which has been sequestered in a frozen state since the Last Glacial Maximum, may significantly impact the Arctic Ocean carbon cycle as well as marine ecosystems. In this study we use 11 years of ocean color satellite data and field observations collected in 2009 to estimate the mass of terrestrial suspended solids and particulate organic carbon delivered by the Mackenzie River into the Beaufort Sea (Arctic Ocean). Our results show that during the summer period, the concentration of suspended solids at the river mouth, in the delta zone and in the river plume has increased by 46, 71 and 33%, respectively, since 2003. Combined with the variations observed in the freshwater discharge, this corresponds to a more than 50% increase in the particulate (terrestrial suspended particles and organic carbon) export from the Mackenzie River into the Beaufort Sea.

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The Seasonal Variability of the Arctic Ocean Ekman Transport and Its Role in the Mixed Layer Heat and Salt Fluxes

Journal of Climate ◽

10.1175/jcli3892.1 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 19 (20) ◽

pp. 5366-5387 ◽

Cited By ~ 61

Author(s):

Jiayan Yang

Keyword(s):

Arctic Ocean ◽

Mixed Layer ◽

Seasonal Variability ◽

Surface Wind ◽

Beaufort Sea ◽

Ekman Transport ◽

The Arctic ◽

Ekman Pumping ◽

Basin Scale ◽

The Arctic Ocean

Abstract The oceanic Ekman transport and pumping are among the most important parameters in studying the ocean general circulation and its variability. Upwelling due to the Ekman transport divergence has been identified as a leading mechanism for the seasonal to interannual variability of the upper-ocean heat content in many parts of the World Ocean, especially along coasts and the equator. Meanwhile, the Ekman pumping is the primary mechanism that drives basin-scale circulations in subtropical and subpolar oceans. In those ice-free oceans, the Ekman transport and pumping rate are calculated using the surface wind stress. In the ice-covered Arctic Ocean, the surface momentum flux comes from both air–water and ice–water stresses. The data required to compute these stresses are now available from satellite and buoy observations. But no basin-scale calculation of the Ekman transport in the Arctic Ocean has been done to date. In this study, a suite of satellite and buoy observations of ice motion, ice concentration, surface wind, etc., will be used to calculate the daily Ekman transport over the whole Arctic Ocean from 1978 to 2003 on a 25-km resolution. The seasonal variability and its relationship to the surface forcing fields will be examined. Meanwhile, the contribution of the Ekman transport to the seasonal fluxes of heat and salt to the Arctic Ocean mixed layer will be discussed. It was found that the greatest seasonal variations of Ekman transports of heat and salt occur in the southern Beaufort Sea in the fall and early winter when a strong anticyclonic wind and ice motion are present. The Ekman pumping velocity in the interior Beaufort Sea reaches as high as 10 cm day−1 in November while coastal upwelling is even stronger. The contributions of the Ekman transport to the heat and salt flux in the mixed layer are also considerable in the region.

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Characteristics of the Arctic environment in the southern Beaufort Sea from Ice Exercise data

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America ◽

10.1121/1.5067533 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 144 (3) ◽

pp. 1695-1695

Author(s):

John E. Joseph ◽

D. Benjamin Reeder ◽

Derek R. Olson

Keyword(s):

Beaufort Sea ◽

The Arctic ◽

Arctic Environment

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Effects of Vertical Water Mass Segregation on Bacterial Community Structure in the Beaufort Sea

Microorganisms ◽

10.3390/microorganisms7100385 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 (10) ◽

pp. 385

Author(s):

Yunyun Fu ◽

Richard B. Rivkin ◽

Andrew S. Lang

Keyword(s):

Bacterial Community ◽

Sea Ice ◽

Arctic Ocean ◽

Community Composition ◽

Bacterial Communities ◽

Water Mass ◽

Beaufort Sea ◽

The Arctic ◽

The Arctic Ocean ◽

Mass Segregation

The Arctic Ocean is one of the least well-studied marine microbial ecosystems. Its low-temperature and low-salinity conditions are expected to result in distinct bacterial communities, in comparison to lower latitude oceans. However, this is an ocean currently in flux, with climate change exerting pronounced effects on sea-ice coverage and freshwater inputs. How such changes will affect this ecosystem are poorly constrained. In this study, we characterized the bacterial community compositions at different depths in both coastal, freshwater-influenced, and pelagic, sea-ice-covered locations in the Beaufort Sea in the western Canadian Arctic Ocean. The environmental factors controlling the bacterial community composition and diversity were investigated. Alphaproteobacteria dominated the bacterial communities in samples from all depths and stations. The Pelagibacterales and Rhodobacterales groups were the predominant taxonomic representatives within the Alphaproteobacteria. Bacterial communities in coastal and offshore samples differed significantly, and vertical water mass segregation was the controlling factor of community composition among the offshore samples, regardless of the taxonomic level considered. These data provide an important baseline view of the bacterial community in this ocean system that will be of value for future studies investigating possible changes in the Arctic Ocean in response to global change and/or anthropogenic disturbance.

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