Modeling Wind-Driven Circulation and Landfast Ice-Edge Processes during Polynya Events in Northern Baffin Bay

Abstract A high-resolution sea ice–ocean numerical model of the North Water polynya has been developed to study the wind-driven circulation during polynya events. An idealized three-layer stratified ocean is used to initialize the model to characterize the baroclinic response to realistic wind and ice conditions. The model general circulation pattern is mainly forced by an along-channel sea level gradient between the Arctic Ocean and Baffin Bay, which determines the magnitude of the southward Baffin Current, and by an across-channel sea level gradient in Baffin Bay, which drives the northward West Greenland Current (WGC). These two currents are found to be anticorrelated to each other in the Smith Sound area. During strong northerly wind events, occurring quite frequently in the winter–spring period in the polynya, nutrient-rich Baffin Bay waters transported by the WGC are forced toward the Greenland shelf, coinciding with upwelling events along the Greenland coast. Whenever an ice bridge is present (i.e., the polynya exists and is substantially open), upwelling also occurs at the landfast ice edge. In such cases, the total upwelling area is increased by an amount that depends on the form of the ice bridge but could easily double during certain years. The baroclinic circulation associated with the upwelling response includes the formation of a cyclonic eddy attached to the ice edge that is generated during strong northerly wind events. Primary production estimations reveal that upwelling during polynya events plays a significant role in the early spring phytoplankton bloom, suggesting that the disappearance of the polynya as a result of climate change may have profound implications for the entire ecosystem.

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Spectral Characterization of Dissolved Organic Matter in Seawater and Sediment Pore Water from the Arctic Fjords (West Svalbard) in Summer

Water ◽

10.3390/w13020202 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 202

Author(s):

Meilian Chen ◽

Ji-Hoon Kim ◽

Sungwook Hong ◽

Yun Kyung Lee ◽

Moo Hee Kang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Organic Matter ◽

Dissolved Organic Matter ◽

Pore Water ◽

Phytoplankton Bloom ◽

Ocean Surface ◽

The Arctic ◽

Sediment Pore Water ◽

Ice Edge ◽

Accumulation Trend ◽

Arctic Fjords

Fjords in the high Arctic, as aquatic critical zones at the interface of land-ocean continuum, are undergoing rapid changes due to glacier retreat and climate warming. Yet, little is known about the biogeochemical processes in the Arctic fjords. We measured the nutrients and the optical properties of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in both seawater and sediment pore water, along with the remote sensing data of the ocean surface, from three West Svalbard fjords. A cross-fjord comparison of fluorescence fingerprints together with downcore trends of salinity, Cl−, and PO43− revealed higher impact of terrestrial inputs (fluorescence index: ~1.2–1.5 in seawaters) and glaciofluvial runoffs (salinity: ~31.4 ± 2.4 psu in pore waters) to the southern fjord of Hornsund as compared to the northern fjords of Isfjorden and Van Mijenfjorden, tallying with heavier annual runoff to the southern fjord of Hornsund. Extremely high levels of protein-like fluorescence (up to ~4.5 RU) were observed at the partially sea ice-covered fjords in summer, in line with near-ubiquity ice-edge blooms observed in the Arctic. The results reflect an ongoing or post-phytoplankton bloom, which is also supported by the higher levels of chlorophyll a fluorescence at the ocean surface, the very high apparent oxygen utilization through the water column, and the nutrient drawdown at the ocean surface. Meanwhile, a characteristic elongated fluorescence fingerprint was observed in the fjords, presumably produced by ice-edge blooms in the Arctic ecosystems. Furthermore, alkalinity and the humic-like peaks showed a general downcore accumulation trend, which implies the production of humic-like DOM via a biological pathway also in the glaciomarine sediments from the Arctic fjords.

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Sustaining ecological and subsistence functions in conservation areas: eider habitat and access by Native hunters along landfast ice

Environmental Conservation ◽

10.1017/s0376892918000103 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 45 (4) ◽

pp. 361-369 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

JAMES R. LOVVORN ◽

AARIEL R. ROCHA ◽

ANDREW H. MAHONEY ◽

STEPHEN C. JEWETT

Keyword(s):

Chukchi Sea ◽

Open Water ◽

The Arctic ◽

Cash Income ◽

Migration Route ◽

Conservation Areas ◽

Subsistence Hunting ◽

Industrial Activities ◽

Landfast Ice ◽

Ice Edge

SUMMARYIn the Arctic, rapid climate change has kindled efforts to delineate and project the future of important habitats for marine birds and mammals. These animals are vital to subsistence economies and cultures, so including the needs of both animals and hunters in conservation planning is key to sustaining social-ecological systems. In the northeast Chukchi Sea, a nearshore corridor of open water is a major spring migration route for half a million eider ducks that are hunted along the landfast ice. Zoning areas for industrial activities or conservation should consider both eider habitat and hunter access to those habitats from the variable ice edge. Based on benthic sampling in 2010‒2012, a model of eider foraging energetics and satellite data on ice patterns in April and May 1997‒2011, we mapped the range of positions of the landfast ice edge relative to a given dispersion of habitat suitable for eider feeding. In some sectors, feeding areas were too limited or too far from landfast ice to provide regular hunting access. In other sectors, overlap of the ice edge with eider feeding habitat was quite variable, but often within a consistent geographic range. Areas accessible to hunters were a small fraction of total eider habitat, so areas adequate for conserving eiders would not necessarily include areas that meet the hunters’ needs. These results can inform spatial planning of industrial activities that yield cash income critical to subsistence hunting in less developed locations. Our study provides an approach for mapping ‘subsistence conservation areas’ throughout the Arctic and an example for such efforts elsewhere.

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Food web structure of the epibenthic community at the sea ice edge in Baffin Bay, Canada

10.7287/peerj.preprints.26673 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Gustavo Yunda-Guarin ◽

Philippe Archambault ◽

Guillaume Massé ◽

Christian Nozais

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Sea Ice ◽

Food Web ◽

Trophic Levels ◽

The Arctic ◽

Feeding Guilds ◽

Food Web Structure ◽

Baffin Bay ◽

Ice Edge ◽

Sea Ice Edge

In polar areas, the pelagic-benthic coupling plays a fundamental role in ensuring organic matter flow across depths and trophic levels. Climate change impacts the Arctic’s physical environment and ecosystem functioning, affecting the sequestration of carbon, the structure and efficiency of the benthic food web and its resilience.In the Arctic Ocean, highest atmospheric warming tendencies (by ~0.5°C) occur in the east of Baffin Bay making this area an ideal site to study the effects of climate change on benthic communities. We sampled epibenthic organisms at 13 stations bordering the sea ice between June and July 2016. The epibenthic taxonomic composition was identified and grouped by feeding guilds. Isotopic signatures (δ13C - δ15N), trophic levels and trophic separation and redundancy were measured and quantified at each station. In the light of the results obtained, the stability of the benthic community in the Baffin Bay at the sea ice edge is discussed.

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Food web structure of the epibenthic community at the sea ice edge in Baffin Bay, Canada

10.7287/peerj.preprints.26673v1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Gustavo Yunda-Guarin ◽

Philippe Archambault ◽

Guillaume Massé ◽

Christian Nozais

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Sea Ice ◽

Food Web ◽

Trophic Levels ◽

The Arctic ◽

Feeding Guilds ◽

Food Web Structure ◽

Baffin Bay ◽

Ice Edge ◽

Sea Ice Edge

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Culturable diversity of Arctic phytoplankton during pack ice melting

Elem Sci Anth ◽

10.1525/elementa.401 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Catherine Gérikas Ribeiro ◽

Adriana Lopes dos Santos ◽

Priscillia Gourvil ◽

Florence Le Gall ◽

Dominique Marie ◽

...

Keyword(s):

18S Rrna ◽

Phytoplankton Bloom ◽

Sequence Similarity ◽

The Arctic ◽

Baffin Bay ◽

Pack Ice ◽

Class Level ◽

Rrna Sequencing ◽

Arctic Ice ◽

Plankton Diversity

Massive phytoplankton blooms develop at the Arctic ice edge, sometimes extending far under the pack ice. An extensive culturing effort was conducted before and during a phytoplankton bloom in Baffin Bay between April and July 2016. Different isolation strategies were applied, including flow cytometry cell sorting, manual single cell pipetting, and serial dilution. Although all three techniques yielded the most common organisms, each technique retrieved specific taxa, highlighting the importance of using several methods to maximize the number and diversity of isolated strains. More than 1,000 cultures were obtained, characterized by 18S rRNA sequencing and optical microscopy, and de-replicated to a subset of 276 strains presented in this work. Strains grouped into 57 phylotypes defined by 100% 18S rRNA sequence similarity. These phylotypes spread across five divisions: Heterokontophyta, Chlorophyta, Cryptophyta, Haptophyta and Dinophyta. Diatoms were the most abundant group (193 strains), mostly represented by the genera Chaetoceros and Attheya. The genera Baffinella and Pyramimonas were the most abundant non-diatom nanoplankton strains, while Micromonas polaris dominated the picoplankton. Diversity at the class level was higher during the peak of the bloom. Potentially new species were isolated, in particular within the genera Navicula, Nitzschia, Coscinodiscus, Thalassiosira, Pyramimonas, Mantoniella and Isochrysis. Culturing efforts such as this one highlight the unexplored eukaryotic plankton diversity in the Arctic and provide a large number of strains for analyzing physiological and metabolic impacts in this changing environment.

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Culturable diversity of Arctic phytoplankton during pack ice melting

10.1101/642264 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Catherine Gérikas Ribeiro ◽

Adriana Lopes dos Santos ◽

Priscillia Gourvil ◽

Florence Le Gall ◽

Dominique Marie ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cell Sorting ◽

18S Rrna ◽

Phytoplankton Bloom ◽

Sequence Similarity ◽

The Arctic ◽

Baffin Bay ◽

Pack Ice ◽

Class Level ◽

Rrna Sequencing ◽

Arctic Ice

AbstractMassive phytoplankton blooms develop at the Arctic ice edge, sometimes extending far under the pack ice. An extensive culturing effort was conducted before and during a phytoplankton bloom in Baffin Bay between April and July 2016. Different isolation strategies were applied, including flow cytometry cell sorting, manual single cell pipetting and serial dilution. Although all three techniques yielded the most common organisms, each technique retrieved specific taxa, highlighting the importance of using several methods to maximize the number and diversity of isolated strains. More than 1,000 cultures were obtained, characterized by 18S rRNA sequencing and optical microscopy and de-replicated to a subset of 276 strains presented in this work. Strains grouped into 57 genotypes defined by 100% 18S rRNA sequence similarity. These genotypes spread across five divisions: Heterokontophyta, Chlorophyta, Cryptophyta, Haptophyta and Dinophyta. Diatoms were the most abundant group (193 strains), mostly represented by the genera Chaetoceros and Attheya. The genera Rhodomonas and Pyramimonas were the most abundant non-diatom nanoplankton strains, while Micromonas polaris dominated the picoplankton. Diversity at the class level was higher during the peak of the bloom. Potentially new species were isolated, in particular within the genera Navicula, Nitzschia, Coscinodiscus, Thalassiosira, Pyramimonas, Mantoniella and Isochrysis.Submitted to: Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene Date: May 17, 2019

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Processes controlling aggregate formation and distribution during the Arctic phytoplankton spring bloom in Baffin Bay

Elem Sci Anth ◽

10.1525/elementa.2021.00001 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Jordan Toullec ◽

Brivaëla Moriceau ◽

Dorothée Vincent ◽

Lionel Guidi ◽

Augustin Lafond ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

Spring Bloom ◽

Phytoplankton Bloom ◽

Light Availability ◽

Open Water ◽

The Arctic ◽

Phytoplankton Production ◽

Baffin Bay ◽

Migration Pathway ◽

Phytoplankton Cells

In the last decades, the Arctic Ocean has been affected by climate change, leading to alterations in the sea ice cover that influence the phytoplankton spring bloom, its associated food web, and therefore carbon sequestration. During the Green Edge 2016 expedition in the central Baffin Bay, the phytoplankton spring bloom and its development around the ice edge was followed along 7 transects from open water to the ice-pack interior. Here, we studied some of the processes driving phytoplankton aggregation, using aggregate and copepod distribution profiles obtained with an underwater vision profiler deployed at several stations along the transects. Our results revealed a sequential pattern during sea ice retreat in phytoplankton production and in aggregate production and distribution. First, under sea ice, phytoplankton started to grow, but aggregates were not formed. Second, after sea ice melting, phytoplankton (diatoms and Phaeocystis spp. as the dominant groups) benefited from the light availability and stratified environment to bloom, and aggregation began coincident with nutrient depletion at the surface. Third, maxima of phytoplankton aggregates deepened in the water column and phytoplankton cells at the surface began to degrade. At most stations, silicate limitation began first, triggering aggregation of the phytoplankton cells; nitrate limitation came later. Copepods followed aggregates at the end of the phytoplankton bloom, possibly because aggregates provided higher quality food than senescing phytoplankton cells at the surface. These observations suggest that aggregation is involved in 2 export pathways constituting the biological pump: the gravitational pathway through the sinking of aggregates and fecal pellets and the migration pathway when zooplankton follow aggregates during food foraging.

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Response of the Arctic Marine Inorganic Carbon System to Ice Algae and Under‐Ice Phytoplankton Blooms: A Case Study Along the Fast‐Ice Edge of Baffin Bay

Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans ◽

10.1029/2018jc013899 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 124 (2) ◽

pp. 1277-1293 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Brent G. T. Else ◽

Jeremy J. Whitehead ◽

Virginie Galindo ◽

Joannie Ferland ◽

C. J. Mundy ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Inorganic Carbon ◽

The Arctic ◽

Ice Algae ◽

Phytoplankton Blooms ◽

Baffin Bay ◽

Fast Ice ◽

Ice Edge ◽

Carbon System

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Operational forecasting system for Arctic Ocean using the Russian marine circulation model INMOM-Arctic

Arctic Ecology and Economy ◽

10.25283/2223-4594-2021-2-205-218 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 205-218

Author(s):

V.V. Fomin ◽

◽

I.I. Panasenkova ◽

A.V. Gusev ◽

A.V. Chaplygin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Arctic Ocean ◽

Sea Level ◽

Spatial Resolution ◽

General Circulation ◽

Circulation Model ◽

Ocean General Circulation Model ◽

Ocean Model ◽

The Arctic ◽

Spherical Coordinate ◽

Open Boundaries

A regional σ-model INMOM-Arctic has been prepared on the basis of the Russian ocean general circulation model INMOM (Institute of Numerical Mathematics Ocean Model) to reproduce the current state and short-term forecast of the Arctic Ocean (AO) hydrothermodynamics. The model is implemented in a rotated spherical coordinate system with the poles located at 60°E and 120° W on the geographic equator, which makes it possible to use a quasi-uniform resolution of ~ 3,7 km in the Arctic Basin. Data on temperature, salinity, horizontal velocity components and sea level taken from the CMEMS ocean products are used at the AO open boundaries. To take into account the tidal effect in the INMOM-Arctic model at open boundaries, the time series of the tidal sea level is set based on the data of the TPXO 9 atlas (TOPEX/Poseidon Global Tidal Model) with a spatial resolution of 1/30°. To calculate the atmospheric impact, the researches use the atmospheric circulation data from the Era 5 global reanalysis with a spatial resolution of 0,25×0,25° and with a temporal resolution of 1 hour.

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Numerical modeling on landfast ice in Arctic region

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-461 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Yuqing Liu ◽

Martin Losch

Keyword(s):

Sea Ice ◽

General Circulation ◽

Circulation Model ◽

Arctic Region ◽

The Arctic ◽

Sea Ice Thickness ◽

Landfast Ice ◽

Resolution Model ◽

Fast Ice ◽

High Resolution Model

<p>Sea ice is regarded as a significant indicator of climate change in the Arctic Ocean. Landfastice is sea ice that is immobile or almost immobile in coastal regions, decreasing the transfer of heat, moisture, and momentum. As an extension of the land for travel and hunting, landfast ice also influences the construction of ice roads and arctic shipping routes in the summertime. Despite the important role of landfast ice in the climate system, the formation and maintenance of landfast ice are not well simulated by current sea ice models. Lemieux (2015) came up with the grounding scheme, by adding a basal stress term according to the water depth, improving landfast ice representation in shallow regions while underestimating in deep regions especially in the Kara Sea. The two different resolution model configurations with the MIT General Circulation Model (MITgcm) sea ice package is compared in landfast ice simulation in the arctic region. Preliminary results show that a higher resolution model better represents landfast ice in deep regions. The proper illustration of coastlines, which serve as pinning points for sea ice arches, in the high-resolution model can improve the representation of landfast ice. We also apply a new parameterization lateral drag term, a function with sea ice thickness, drift velocity, and coastline intricacy, in the model to better simulate landfast ice. The results suggest a combination of lateral drag and basal stress terms successfully simulates fast ice in most regions</p>

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