An edited version of this paper was published by AGU.
Copyright 2005 American Geophysical Union.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L117605,
doi:10.1029/2005GL023740
Igor V. Polyakov, Agnieszka Beszczynska, Eddy Carmack, Igor Dmitrenko, Eberhard Fahrbach, Ivan Frolov, Ruediger Gerdes, Edmond Hansen, Jürgen Holfort, Vlafimir Ivanov, Mark Johnson, Michael Karcher, Frank Kauker, James Morison, Kjell Orvik, Ursula Schauer, Harper Simmons, Øystein Skagseth, Vladimir Sokolov, Michael Steele, Leonid Timokhov, David Walsh, John Walsh
This study was motivated by a strong warming signal seen in mooring-based and oceanographic survey data collected in 2004 in the Eurasian Basin of the Arctic Ocean. The source of this and earlier Arctic Ocean changes lies in interactions between polar and sub-polar basins. Evidence suggests such changes are abrupt, or pulse-like, taking the form of propagating anomalies that can be traced to higher-latitudes. For example, an anomaly found in 2004 in the eastern Eurasian Basin took ~1.5 years to propagate from the Norwegian Sea to the Fram Strait region, and additional ~4.5-5 years to reach the Laptev Sea slope. While the causes of the observed changes will require further investigation, our conclusions are consistent with prevailing ideas suggesting the Arctic Ocean is in transition towards a new, warmer state.