The warming of the Chukchi slope through the Barrow Canyon outflow in the 2016-2017 winter

Satoshi Kimura1, Jonaotaro Onodera1, Motoyo Itoh2, Takashi Kikuchi1, Shigeto Nishino2, Yusuke Kawaguchi3, Eiji Watanabe1 and Naomi Harada1, (1)JAMSTEC Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Kanagawa, Japan, (2)Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokosuka, Japan, (3)Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, Chiba, Japan
Abstract:
We present profiles of wintertime hydrography on the Chukchi slope from an autonomous profiling instrument, and mooring records in Barrow Canyon. The central and western sectors of Barrow Canyon in December 2016 - February 2017 (DJF 2016-2017) were anomalously warm (~0.5 °C warmer than the climatology) with the flow orienting toward the Arctic Ocean. Unlike the summertime warming near the surface, the warm outflow has a temperature maximum at 80 dbar, and this outflow modifies the water mass properties on the Chukchi slope 70 km north of the canyon. Based on our Barrow Canyon mooring records starting in 2002, this is the first time that such warming is recorded on the outflow in winter. We discuss that this is due to the combination of the Barrow Canyon outflow favourable wind pattern and warming in the southern Chukchi Sea (the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea) before the winter.
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