Arctic Waters Getting Hotter
Pastor Dale Morgan
Arctic Waters Getting Hotter*
Bremerhaven, Germany (SPX) Oct 05, 2006
Several days ago, the 'Maria S Merian' returned from her second Arctic
expedition with data confirming trends of Arctic warming. "Compared to
last summer, the water that flows from the Norwegian Sea to the Arctic
has been an average 0.8 degrees Celsius warmer this summer," says
expedition leader Dr Ursula Schauer of the Alfred Wegener Institute for
Polar and Marine Research.
"This is in addition to the last two years already having been warmer
than the previous 20 from which we have regular measurements. Over the
Yermak Plateau, an oceanic ridge, the oceanographers documented water of
more than four degrees Celsius moving up to 81 20' northern latitude,"
according to Schauer. During the expedition, biologists discovered
zooplankton species from the Norwegian Sea which were previously
unrecorded from the northern latitudes that they had reached via the
warm waters.
For one month, scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute, the
University of Bremen and the Polish Institute of Oceanology were
tracking warm waters along the sea ice margin between Greenland and
Spitsbergen. As the sea ice margin was far north this year, the 'Maria S
Merian' reached its northernmost position yet at 81 20'N.
In Fram Strait, the scientists continued oceanographic and biological
long-term studies that were initiated ten years ago.
The climate change observed throughout the past ten years is
particularly marked in the Arctic. Oceanographers are working towards a
better understanding of the oceans' role in this process. How much heat
is transmitted to the Arctic by the northernmost subsidiary of the warm
North Atlantic Current, and how much variation is found in this heat
pump, are some of the open questions. For this purpose, the transport of
warm, high salinity water from the Atlantic to the Arctic has been
recorded in the strait between Greenland and Spitsbergen, using an
elaborate fixture system.
Previous measurements have indicated the occurrence of several strong
warm pulses during the past decade. Within the context of an
international programme, a combination of this and similar data has, for
the first time, enabled reconstruction of an Atlantic heat pulse through
the Norwegian Sea and far into the inner Arctic over several years.
In order to continue the time series, the scientists have collected the
instruments deployed in Fram Strait and replaced them with new ones. The
automated long-term recordings are verified and complemented with high
resolution measurements of current water temperature.