The seasonal cycle in temperature and salinity within the East Greenland Current at 74N

Abstract of a poster presented at the EGU meeting 2004 in Nice


G. Wieczorek(1), J. Holfort(2) and M.Karcher(3)
1) Institut fuer Meereskunde, Hamburg (wieczorek@ifm.uni-hamburg.de)
2) Norsk Polarinstitutt, Tromsø
3) Alfred Wegener Institut, Bremerhaven

It is quite difficult to make measurement over the course of one year in regions which have an almost closed, thick ice-cover during winter. Instruments near to the surface are easily damaged by the ice, but using a protective tube for the uppermost 40m of a mooring, we were able to collect temperature and salinity data near the surface for several years within the Polar Water (PW) on the shelf at 74N. Moorings further offshore also collected data within the depth of the return Atlantic Water. In the PW we see a strong stratification in summer and almost none in winter, these changes being also correlated with the regional ice cover. A similar seasonal cycle can also be seen in results of the North Atlantic/Arctic Sea Ice Ocean Model (NAOSIM), which is based on Mom2 for the ocean and includes a Hibler/Harder/Lemke ice model. We will prsent the seasonal cycle as seen in the measurements and in the model and show differences and similarities.