Baffin and Labrador seas

[johnm33]

I think we're going to see a lot more action on the west coast of Greenland much of it caused or enhanced by the changes happening in these seas.
The last few days the warm anomoly in Labrador has slowly disappeared, there's been no equivalent halt to the warm water subducting off the east coast.

http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-52.54,68.76,736/loc=10.186,74.946 click the < to get it to go back a day. This is a detail from http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/color_newdisp_anomaly_north_pole_stereo_ophi0.png
 
There have been powerful north winds in Baffin perhaps moving sufficient volume of ice south to cause the Irminger waters, to rise up from the slope and head north. The latest polarview on DMI of Sisimiut shows turbulence which seems to be an indication that the wgsc is on the move, we'll see soon enough.

[A-Team]

Good idea for a forum, especially as you have identified an original research agenda. Any chance you could copy over some of your earlier posts (revised if needed)? Also be good if you could link up with the work on adjacent seas to the north of our 'resident' oceanographer A Muenchow.

Meltwater from Petermann is found in all the casts in Hall Basin, notably north of the sill by Greenland coast. The geometrical method reveals that the casts closest to the Canadian side mostly contain meltwater from other, unidentified glaciers. As Atlantic Water warms up, it is key to monitor Greenland melting glaciers and track their meltwater to properly assess their impact on the ocean circulation and sea level rise.

I wonder though if it makes sense to compartmentalize -- major currents like the Irmininger swing around from the east. That through Nares originates far away. And Fram Strait, a lot going on there (http://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/tc-2015-122/)

It all comes back to John Muir noting 'when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.' [He never said anything about tugging on a thread, http://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/misquotes.aspx]

[johnm33]

Davis strait is our best chance of quantifying fresher water losses, whether these are from the glaciers on the west coast, or the flows through CAA and Nares.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/2010JPO4536.1
"Davis Strait captures the CAA outflow after modification during its transit through Baffin Bay to the Labrador Sea (Fig. 1a). Arctic Ocean waters, entering northern Baffin Bay through Nares Strait and Jones and Lancaster Sounds, flow southward along Baffin Island through Davis Strait as the broad, surface-intensified Baffin Island Current (BIC; Tang et al. 2004; Cuny et al. 2005). Northward flow on the eastern side of Davis Strait consists of the fresh West Greenland Current (WGC) of Arctic origin on the shelf and warm, salty West Greenland Slope Current (WGSC) of North Atlantic origin on the slope. These inflowing waters, modified during their cyclonic circulation in Baffin Bay, join the BIC and exit western Davis Strait at depths typically >400 m. The net Baffin Bay outflow combines CAA flows, river runoff, sea ice, and inputs from Greenland and the North Atlantic. The smaller Fury and Hecla Strait component [0.1 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1 = 31 536 km3 yr−1) volume and 38 mSv freshwater] of the CAA outflow bypasses Baffin Bay and enters the Labrador Sea through Hudson Strait (Straneo and Saucier 2008)."
This image from http://asof.awi.de/fileadmin/user_upload/redakteur/Reports_Brochures/Presentations/Bremerhaven__March_2015/Presentations/CraigLee_asof2015_mac.pdf illustrates the flows N/S and to an extent the energetic state of them. The presentation defines the various currents.

[johnm33]

A-Team
"I wonder though if it makes sense to compartmentalize -- major currents like the Irmininger swing around from the east. That through Nares originates far away. And Fram Strait, a lot going on there (http://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/tc-2015-122/)"  Sure whatever evolves is good, but for now a broad brush.
"It all comes back to John Muir noting 'when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.' [He never said anything about tugging on a thread, http://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/misquotes.aspx]" yup I was trying to figure out what water was passing into the CAA so what's arriving in the arctic? from where? and now I'm looking at what emerges. Hmm "hitched to everything else in the universe" http://www.smphillips.8m.com/index.html
 There's turbulence now in Disko it's hard to interpret without tidal state, but there's a lot going on in Jakobshavn

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/images/MODIS/Disko/20160420rs02.ASAR.jpg

[johnm33]

24th 27th from http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/color_newdisp_anomaly_north_pole_stereo_ophi0.png


I can scarcely beleive what I've been thinking, that is that the massive movement in Beaufort halted or reversed the flow through the CAA and that in Baffin all the southern waters have been pulled north by the tides. What else I thought may happen if that was true is that warm Barents waters would be drawn beneath the ice towards Nares and beyond melting the ice in the archipelago from below.

  From 60deg. north to 75deg. north [the west coast of greenland] represents about a 1/4 of the distance from the equator to the axis of rotation [pole] so unlike the open oceans to the south most of the kinetic and rotational energy shed going north is shed in the fjords, and apart from some stirring of sediments passes almost unoticed, perhaps not in the coming week though.

[oren]

The difference between 24th-27th is massive along the west Greenland coast.

[crandles]

I can scarcely beleive what I've been thinking, that is that the massive movement in Beaufort halted or reversed the flow through the CAA and that in Baffin all the southern waters have been pulled north by the tides.

Isn't this the normal direction of current?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Greenland_Current

[johnm33]

Crandles "Isn't this the normal direction of current?"
It is but this is a better representation of the flows, and I think we are seeing an unusual surge of southern waters.

In this Image Ive highlighted the anomoly in Disko but there's a huge area of warm water emerging from the deep channel that connects Ummannaq to the deep water, and it looks like it's already being carried across to Baffin Island and thence to Foxe Basin, at the whim of the tides.

courtesy of Nullschool
This paper discusses the volumes through Davis strait http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/2010JPO4536.1
Abstract

Davis Strait volume [−2.3 ± 0.7 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1); negative sign indicates southward transport], freshwater (−116 ± 41 mSv), and heat (20 ± 9 TW) fluxes estimated from objectively mapped 2004–05 moored array data do not differ significantly from values based on a 1987–90 array but are distributed differently across the strait. The 2004–05 array provided the first year-long measurements in the upper 100 m and over the shelves. The upper 100 m accounts for 39% (−0.9 Sv) of the net volume and 59% (−69 mSv) of the net freshwater fluxes. Shelf contributions are small: 0.4 Sv (volume), 15 mSv (freshwater), and 3 TW (heat) from the West Greenland shelf and −0.1 Sv, −7 mSv, and 1 TW from the Baffin Island shelf. Contemporaneous measurements of the Baffin Bay inflows and outflows indicate that volume and freshwater budgets balance to within 26% and 4%, respectively, of the net Davis Strait outflow. Davis Strait volume and freshwater fluxes nearly equal those from Fram Strait, indicating that both are significant Arctic freshwater pathways.
This one is more focussed on southbound waters and their make up in west Baffin. https://www.researchgate.net/c/o4you9/javascript/lib/pdfjs/web/viewer.html?file=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fprofile%2FAndreas_Muenchow2%2Fpublication%2F256663174_Baffin_Island_and_West_Greenland_Current_Systems_in_northern_Baffin_Bay%2Flinks%2F552528d70cf2caf11bfd1ef8.pdf%3FinViewer%3D1%26pdfJsDownload%3D1%26origin%3Dpublication_detail

[A-Team]

That tip of Greenland is about the windiest place ever. The colors show instantaneous wind power density over wind direction (south in Baffin Bay). This would affect surface currents especially if the wind were moving bergs with a few hundred meters submerged.

[johnm33]

I had these images set up as a gif but when i copied it i got another copy when i exported it i got another copy when i imported it well, i got another copy that i could copy or export. 


but on topic I thought that Barents water would be making it's way into the archipelago and this is a definite maybe. Looking at A-Teams animations of Amundsen Gulf/ beaufort it's hard [for me] not to think that the flow there is reversed, and unusually there's some surface flow heading north in Nares

There's some action in Ilulissat/Jakobshavn but a new ice dam seems to have formed but then the tides are limited just now, and if not the glacier itself then the fast ice in front of Store is on the move. Further north there's lots of turbulence in Qaanaaq http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/images/MODIS/Qaanaaq/20160501rs02.ASAR.jpg http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/images/MODIS/Qaanaaq/20160428s01a.ASAR.jpg which I suspect is the clash of southern and arctic waters mixing. If southern waters are penetrating this far then they'll be making it to Humbolt too so as the tides build towards the end of the week we may see some  movement on the eastern side of Nares, but limited to chunks breaking off. That doesn't mean there won't be lots of subsurface melt I'm looking for unusual 'high' low tides in the south west of Labrador in the near future as melt on the west coast of Greenland accelerates.
For when the dam breaks http://www.lookr.com/lookout/1310041325-Ilulissat

[johnm33]

I blow this up ctrl+ x8 to get a better view http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticsss_nowcast_anim30d.gif whilst mainly i'm looking at the freshwater release from west Greenland it's hard not to notice the floods emerging from Kangerlussuaq and points  south on the east coast.  http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/images/MODIS/Kangerlussuaq/20160508s01a.ASAR.jpg then there's the fresh[er] water emerging from Nares, melt? or arctic waters?
Same story ctrl+ x8  http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticssh_nowcast_anim30d.gif
  I'm wondering if to some extent we can use the ssh against Baffin island shore as a proxy for Arctic waters passing through, that is the higher the metric the more arctic waters? The reverse of this is that the lower the metric more Greenland melt water is present/available. If this resource was just a little more refined it would really show up the Irminger rings in Labrador.
 Given the massive movement of ice and predicted winds, on a balance of probabilities basis i expect Barents water to be making it's way through Nares for at least part of the week indicated by an arc of thinning on amsr2 from Svalbard to Ellesmere an expected consequence would be either a lot more meltwater emerging as fresher water or an anomoly showing up on nullschool[south of Kane].
The melt on Greenland looks bad for Europes summer, but it depends how fast this water makes it into the north Atlantic.