Late Cenozoic Erosion Estimates for the Northern Barents Sea: Quantifying Glacial Sediment Input to the Arctic Ocean

Abstract. The Arctic Ocean is expected to be disproportionately sensitive to climatic changes, and is thought to be an area where such changes might be detected. The Arctic hydrological cycle is influenced by: runoff and precipitation, sea ice formation/melting, and the inflow of saline waters from Bering and Fram Straits and the Barents Sea Shelf. Pacific water is recognizable as intermediate salinity water, with high concentrations of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), flowing from the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic via the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. We present DIC data from an east-west section through the Archipelago, as part of the Canadian International Polar Year initiatives. The fractions of Pacific and Arctic Ocean waters leaving the Archipelago and entering Baffin Bay, and subsequently the North Atlantic, are computed. The eastward transport of carbon from the Pacific, via the Arctic, to the North Atlantic is estimated. Altered mixing ratios of Pacific and freshwater in the Arctic Ocean have been recorded in recent decades. Any climatically driven alterations in the composition of waters leaving the Arctic Archipelago may have implications for anthropogenic CO2 uptake, and hence ocean acidification, in the subpolar and temperate North Atlantic.

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Characteristics of the Russian shelf seas in the Arctic Ocean regarding the content of heavy minerals in surface sediments: new data

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-1166 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Elena Popova

Keyword(s):

Arctic Ocean ◽

Environmental Science ◽

Barents Sea ◽

Source Rocks ◽

Heavy Minerals ◽

The Arctic ◽

Arctic Seas ◽

Riverine Input ◽

The Arctic Ocean ◽

Shelf Seas

Such factors as climate, currents, morphology, riverine input, and the source rocks influence the composition of the sediments in the Arctic Ocean. Heavy minerals being quite inert in terms of transport can reflect the geology of the source rock clearly and indicate the riverine input. There is a long history of studying the heavy mineral composition of the sediments in the Arctic Ocean. The works by Vogt (1997), Kosheleva (1999), Stein (2008), and others study the distribution of the minerals both on a sea scale and oceanwide. The current study covers Russian shelf seas: Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi Seas. To collect the material several data sources were used: data collected by the institute VNIIOkeangeologia during numerous expeditions since 2000 for mapping the shelf, data from the old expedition reports (earlier than 2000) taken from the geological funds, and datasets from PANGAEA (www.pangaea.de). About 82 minerals and groups of minerals were included in the joint dataset. The density of the sample points varied significantly in all seas: 1394 data points in the Barents Sea, 713 in the Kara Sea, 487 in the Laptev Sea, 196 in the East Siberian Sea, and 245 in the Chukchi Sea. These data allowed comparing the areas in terms of major minerals and associations. Maps of prevailing and significant components were created in ODV (Schlitzer, 2020) to demonstrate the differences between the seas and indicate the sites of remarkable changes in the source rocks. Additionally, the standardized ratio was calculated to perform quantitative comparison: the sea average was divided by the weighted sea average and then the ratio of that number to the mineral average was found. Only the minerals present in at least four seas and amounting to at least 20 points per sea were considered. As a result, water areas with the highest content of particular minerals were detected. The ratio varied from 0 to 3,4. Combining the ratio data for various minerals allowed mapping specific groups or provinces for every sea and within the seas.&#160;Kosheleva, V.A., & Yashin, D.S. (1999). Bottom Sediments of the Arctic Seas. St. Petersburg: VNIIOkeangeologia, 286pp. (in Russian).PANGAEA. Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science https://www.pangaea.de/Schlitzer, R. (2020). Ocean Data View, Retrieved from https://odv.awi.de.Stein, R. (2008). Arctic Ocean Sediments: Processes, Proxies, and Paleoenvironment. Oxford: Elsevier, 602pp.Vogt, C. (1997). Regional and temporal variations of mineral assemblages in Arctic Ocean sediments as a climatic indicator during glacial/interglacial changes. Berichte Zur Polarforschung, 251, 309pp.

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Biostratigraphy and late Cenozoic paleoceanography of the Arctic Ocean: Foraminiferal, lithostratigraphic, and isotopic evidence

Geological Society of America Bulletin ◽

10.1130/0016-7606(1989)101<0260:balcpo>2.3.co;2 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 101 (2) ◽

pp. 260-277 ◽

Cited By ~ 67

Author(s):

D. B. SCOTT ◽

P. J. MUDIE ◽

V. BAKI ◽

K. D. MACKINNON ◽

F. E. COLE

Keyword(s):

Arctic Ocean ◽

The Arctic ◽

Late Cenozoic ◽

Isotopic Evidence ◽

The Arctic Ocean

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Spatial Distribution of Atmospheric Aerosol Physicochemical Characteristics in the Russian Sector of the Arctic Ocean

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos11111170 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (11) ◽

pp. 1170

Author(s):

Sergey Sakerin ◽

Dmitry Kabanov ◽

Valery Makarov ◽

Viktor Pol’kin ◽

Svetlana Popova ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Spatial Distribution ◽

Chemical Composition ◽

Arctic Ocean ◽

Black Carbon ◽

Forest Fires ◽

Barents Sea ◽

The Arctic ◽

The North ◽

The Barents Sea ◽

The Arctic Ocean

The results from studies of aerosol in the Arctic atmosphere are presented: the aerosol optical depth (AOD), the concentrations of aerosol and black carbon, as well as the chemical composition of the aerosol. The average aerosol characteristics, measured during nine expeditions (2007–2018) in the Eurasian sector of the Arctic Ocean, had been 0.068 for AOD (0.5 µm); 2.95 cm−3 for particle number concentrations; 32.1 ng/m3 for black carbon mass concentrations. Approximately two–fold decrease of the average characteristics in the eastern direction (from the Barents Sea to Chukchi Sea) is revealed in aerosol spatial distribution. The average aerosol characteristics over the Barents Sea decrease in the northern direction: black carbon concentrations by a factor of 1.5; particle concentrations by a factor of 3.7. These features of the spatial distribution are caused mainly by changes in the content of fine aerosol, namely: by outflows of smokes from forest fires and anthropogenic aerosol. We considered separately the measurements of aerosol characteristics during two expeditions in 2019: in the north of the Barents Sea (April) and along the Northern Sea Route (July–September). In the second expedition the average aerosol characteristics turned out to be larger than multiyear values: AOD reached 0.36, particle concentration up to 8.6 cm−3, and black carbon concentration up to 179 ng/m3. The increased aerosol content was affected by frequent outflows of smoke from forest fires. The main (99%) contribution to the elemental composition of aerosol in the study regions was due to Ca, K, Fe, Zn, Br, Ni, Cu, Mn, and Sr. The spatial distribution of the chemical composition of aerosols was analogous to that of microphysical characteristics. The lowest concentrations of organic and elemental carbon (OC, EC) and of most elements are observed in April in the north of the Barents Sea, and the maximal concentrations in Far East seas and in the south of the Barents Sea. The average contents of carbon in aerosol over seas of the Asian sector of the Arctic Ocean are OC = 629 ng/m3, EC = 47 ng/m3.

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A satellite-based Lagrangian perspective on Atlantic Water fractionation in the Nordic Seas

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-8422 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Léon Chafik ◽

Sara Broomé

Keyword(s):

Arctic Ocean ◽

Barents Sea ◽

Bottom Topography ◽

Atlantic Water ◽

The Arctic ◽

Fram Strait ◽

Nordic Seas ◽

The Barents Sea ◽

The Arctic Ocean ◽

Outer Branch

The Arctic Ocean has been receiving&#160;more of the warm and saline Atlantic Water in the past&#160;decades. This water mass enters the Arctic Ocean via two Arctic gateways: the Barents Sea Opening and the Fram Strait.&#160;Here, we focus on the fractionation of Atlantic Water at these two gateways using a Lagrangian approach based on satellite-derived geostrophic velocities.&#160;Simulated particles are released at 70N at the inner and outer branch of the North Atlantic current system&#160;in the Nordic Seas. The trajectories toward the Fram Strait and Barents Sea Opening&#160;are found to be&#160;largely steered by the bottom topography and there is an indication of an&#160;anti-phase relationship in the number of particles reaching the gateways. There is, however, a significant&#160;cross-over of particles from the outer branch to the inner branch and into the Barents Sea, which is&#160;found to be related to high eddy kinetic energy between the branches. This cross-over may be important for Arctic climate variability.

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Effects of sea ice cover on satellite-detected primary production in the Arctic Ocean

Biology Letters ◽

10.1098/rsbl.2016.0223 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 12 (11) ◽

pp. 20160223 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

Mati Kahru ◽

Zhongping Lee ◽

B. Greg Mitchell ◽

Cynthia D. Nevison

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Primary Production ◽

Arctic Ocean ◽

Barents Sea ◽

Net Primary Production ◽

Arctic Sea Ice ◽

The Arctic ◽

Primary Input ◽

High Productivity ◽

The Arctic Ocean

The influence of decreasing Arctic sea ice on net primary production (NPP) in the Arctic Ocean has been considered in multiple publications but is not well constrained owing to the potentially large errors in satellite algorithms. In particular, the Arctic Ocean is rich in coloured dissolved organic matter (CDOM) that interferes in the detection of chlorophyll a concentration of the standard algorithm, which is the primary input to NPP models. We used the quasi-analytic algorithm (Lee et al . 2002 Appl. Opti. 41 , 5755−5772. ( doi:10.1364/AO.41.005755 )) that separates absorption by phytoplankton from absorption by CDOM and detrital matter. We merged satellite data from multiple satellite sensors and created a 19 year time series (1997–2015) of NPP. During this period, both the estimated annual total and the summer monthly maximum pan-Arctic NPP increased by about 47%. Positive monthly anomalies in NPP are highly correlated with positive anomalies in open water area during the summer months. Following the earlier ice retreat, the start of the high-productivity season has become earlier, e.g. at a mean rate of −3.0 d yr −1 in the northern Barents Sea, and the length of the high-productivity period has increased from 15 days in 1998 to 62 days in 2015. While in some areas, the termination of the productive season has been extended, owing to delayed ice formation, the termination has also become earlier in other areas, likely owing to limited nutrients.

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Mechanisms influencing seasonal-to-interannual prediction skill of sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean in MIROC

10.5194/tc-2017-122 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Jun Ono ◽

Hiroaki Tatebe ◽

Yoshiki Komuro ◽

Masato I. Nodzu ◽

Masayoshi Ishii

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Arctic Ocean ◽

Barents Sea ◽

Heat Content ◽

The Arctic ◽

Subsurface Water ◽

Lead Times ◽

Sea Ice Concentration ◽

Sea Ice Extent ◽

The Arctic Ocean

Abstract. To assess the skill of predictions of the seasonal-to-interannual detrended sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean (SIEAO) and to clarify the underlying physical processes, we conducted ensemble hindcasts, started on January 1st, April 1st, July 1st, and October 1st for each year from 1980 to 2011, for lead times of up three years, using the Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate (MIROC) version 5 initialized with the observed atmosphere and ocean anomalies and sea ice concentration. Significant skill is found for the winter months: the December SIEAO can be predicted up to 1 year ahead. This skill is attributed to the subsurface ocean heat content originating in the North Atlantic. The subsurface water flows into the Barents Sea from spring to fall and emerges at the surface in winter by vertical mixing, and eventually affects the sea ice variability there. Meanwhile, the September SIEAO predictions are skillful for lead times of up to 3 months, due to the persistence of sea ice in the Beaufort, Chukchi, and East Siberian Seas initialized in July, as suggested by previous studies.

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On available energy in the ocean and its application to the Barents Sea

Ocean Science Discussions ◽

10.5194/osd-4-897-2007 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 4 (6) ◽

pp. 897-931

Author(s):

R. C. Levine ◽

D. J. Webb

Keyword(s):

Arctic Ocean ◽

Barents Sea ◽

Exact Expression ◽

The Arctic ◽

Global Ocean ◽

Boundary Current ◽

Available Energy ◽

The Barents Sea ◽

The Arctic Ocean ◽

Definition Of

Abstract. Following meteorological practice the definition of available potential energy in the ocean is conventionally defined in terms of the properties of the global ocean. However there is also a requirement for a localised definition, for example the energy released when shelf water cascades down a continental shelf in the Arctic and enters a boundary current. In this note we start from first principals to obtain an exact expression for the available energy (AE) in such a situation. We show that the available energy depends on enstrophy and gravity. We also show that it is exactly equal to the work done by the pressure gradient and by buoyancy. The results are used to investigate the distribution of AE in the Barents Sea and surrounding regions relative to the interior of the Arctic Ocean. We find that water entering the Barents Sea from the Atlantic already has a high AE, that it is increased by cooling but that much of the increase is lost overcoming turbulence during the passage through the region to the Arctic Ocean. However on entering the Arctic enough available energy remains to drive a significant current around the margin of the ocean. The core of raised available energy also acts as a tracer which can be followed along the continental slope beyond the dateline.

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Freshwater pulses in the eastern Arctic Ocean during Saalian and Early Weichselian ice-sheet collapse

Quaternary Research ◽

10.1016/j.yqres.2003.07.008 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 60 (3) ◽

pp. 243-251 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Jochen Knies ◽

Christoph Vogt

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Arctic Ocean ◽

Large Scale ◽

Barents Sea ◽

The Arctic ◽

Fram Strait ◽

Nordic Seas ◽

The Arctic Ocean ◽

Transpolar Drift ◽

Mis 5

AbstractImproved multiparameter records from the northern Barents Sea margin show two prominent freshwater pulses into the Arctic Ocean during MIS 5 that significantly disturbed the regional oceanic regime and probably affected global climate. Both pulses are associated with major iceberg-rafted debris (IRD) events, revealing intensive iceberg/sea ice melting. The older meltwater pulse occurred near the MIS 5/6 boundary (∼131,000 yr ago); its ∼2000 year duration and high IRD input accompanied by high illite content suggest a collapse of large-scale Saalian Glaciation in the Arctic Ocean. Movement of this meltwater with the Transpolar Drift current into the Fram Strait probably promoted freshening of Nordic Seas surface water, which may have increased sea-ice formation and significantly reduced deep-water formation. A second pulse of freshwater occurred within MIS 5a (∼77,000 yr ago); its high smectite content and relatively short duration is possibly consistent with sudden discharge of Early Weichselian ice-dammed lakes in northern Siberia as suggested by terrestrial glacial geologic data. The influence of this MIS 5a meltwater pulse has been observed at a number of sites along the Transpolar Drift, through Fram Strait, and into the Nordic Seas; it may well have been a trigger for the North Atlantic cooling event C20.

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Unprecedented decline of sea ice thickness in Fram Strait in 2017-2018

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-6427 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Hiroshi Sumata ◽

Laura de Steur ◽

Dmitry Divine ◽

Olga Pavlova ◽

Sebastian Gerland

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Arctic Ocean ◽

Barents Sea ◽

North Atlantic Ocean ◽

The Arctic ◽

Ice Thickness ◽

Fram Strait ◽

Sea Ice Thickness ◽

Drift Speed ◽

The Arctic Ocean

Fram Strait is the major gateway connecting the Arctic Ocean and the northern North Atlantic Ocean where about 80 to 90% of sea ice outflow from the Arctic Ocean takes place. Long-term observations from the Fram Strait Arctic Outflow Observatory maintained by the Norwegian Polar Institute captured an unprecedented decline of sea ice thickness in 2017 &#8211; 2018 since comprehensive observations started in the early 1990s. Four Ice Profiling Sonars moored in the East Greenland Current in Fram Strait simultaneously recorded 50 &#8211; 70 cm decline of annual mean ice thickness in comparison with preceding years. A backward trajectory analysis revealed that the decline was attributed to an anomalous sea level pressure pattern from 2017 autumn to 2018 summer. Southerly wind associated with a dipole pressure anomaly between Greenland and the Barents Sea prevented southward motion of ice floes north of Fram Strait. Hence ice pack was exposed to warm Atlantic Water in the north of Fram Strait 2 &#8211; 3 times longer than the average year, allowing more melt to happen. At the same time, the dipole anomaly was responsible for the slowest observed annual mean ice drift speed in Fram Strait in the last two decades. As a consequence of the record minimum of ice thickness and the slowest drift speed, the sea ice volume transport through the Fram Strait dropped by more than 50% in comparison with the 2010 &#8211; 2017 average.

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