International Research Training Group ArcTrain

Baffin Bay

Melting of continental ice sheets generates an excess freshwater influx routed into the North Atlantic Ocean, where it may interfere with the formation of deep water and thus affect the global oceanic circulation. Large meltwater discharge is the principal carrier of detritus from the continent into the ocean and the dispersion of this detritus by ocean currents is a measure for the distribution of the spatially focused addition of freshwater in the ocean. To trace ice sheet dynamics, meltwater plumes and freshwater routing into the North Atlantic during late Pleistocene climate transition, we perform multi-isotope (Sr, Nd, Hf, Pb) profiles, used as proxies for continental detritus, sea-water sources and changing weathering, on sediment cores around Greenland and Baffin Bay.

Projects

Processes and impacts of climate change in the North Atlantic Ocean and the Canadian Arctic

Impact of meltwater events on weathering and detrital fluxes along the coast of western Greenland, Baffin Bay (L. Madaj).