Freshwater Processes in the Arctic, Baffin Bay and the Labrador Sea

This presentation will focus on questions of advection and mixing in the Pan-Arctic system, with a focus on the Candian Arctic Archipelago, Baffin Bay and the Labrador Sea. The focus is mainly on two different water masses, Atlantic/Irminger Water and the low-salinity Arctic Water exported to the sub-Polar North Atlantic and the Nordic Seas.  These waters masses are important for setting the stratification of the Arctic Ocean, and impact the biogeochemistry as well as the circulation. Water that is exported from the Arctic through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and Fram Strait has the potential to significantly impact the sub-polar North Atlantic. We will also examine where freshwater leaves the shelf around the Labrador Sea and where warm Atlantic water gets onto the shelf near Greenland. ANHA (Arctic and North Hemisphere Atlantic Ocean), a regional configuration of coupled ocean-sea ice model, based on the Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean (NEMO, version 3.4) framework, is utilized in this study. We focus on a high resolution 1/12 degree experiment but also use a ¼ degree twin experiment to consider the role of model resolution. Driven with high temporal (hourly) and spatial (33km) resolution atmospheric forcing (CGRF) provided by Canadian Meteorological Center (CMC) global deterministic prediction system (GDPS) as well as the carefully remapped inter-annual monthly runoff including meltwater from the Greenland Ice Sheet plus an iceberg module, the simulations reproduce the Arctic Ocean outflows well in comparison with available observations.

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