T, S, and U: Arctic Ocean Change in Response to Sea Ice Loss and Other Forcings

Abstract:

The Arctic Ocean is changing rapidly, partly in response to sea ice loss and partly from other forcings. Here we consider the three main parameters of physical oceanography: temperature, salinity, and momentum. With regard to temperature, the ocean is experiencing enhanced seasonal surface warming each summer as the ice pack retreats and thins. Some of this summer heat can persist through the winter below the surface mixed layer, although enhanced mixing and other processes can act against this survival. Deeper subsurface layers advected into the Arctic from the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans are also warming as these areas respond to warming trends and decadal climate variability. Arctic Ocean warming has implications for the mass balance of the sea ice pack, as well as both marine and coastal terrestrial ecosystems. With regard to salinity, the ocean has just begun to show an overall freshening signal, although with high spatial and temporal variance. This freshening is partly a result of sea ice melt, but also a response to global hydrologic and oceanographic changes. Arctic Ocean freshening enhances the surface stratification, which suppresses upward fluxes of heat and nutrients from below. It also reduces the transfer of momentum (i.e., the stress) from winds to the deep ocean. With regard to momentum, sea ice reduction has created a “looser” ice pack that allows more wind energy to enter the ocean. This effect opposes that of enhanced freshening/stratification when one considers mixing in the upper ocean; the sign and amplitude of the net result is a hot topic in the field. It should also be noted that surface stress in the summer season might actually be declining, as the rough ice pack transitions to a generally smoother sparse pack or open water. In summary, the Arctic Ocean is on the cusp of great change, largely (but not exclusively) forced by changes in the sea ice pack.