some surges maybe more acceptable than others
That ice export from the Barents sea to the Fram strait in 2003 coincided with the beginning of a surge of Atlantic water into the Barents sea and European side of the Arctic ocean. The surge of warm salty Atlantic water was a key to the decline in Arctic ice later in that decade.
Yes, the winds and weather that exported ice also imported Atlantic water into the Barents sea.
And suddenly everybody can claim surges of water going here and there without so much a shred of evidence!
I have on previous occasions pointed out that the Arctic ocean is a watery body of extreme turpitude. Hardly anything moves in there, the few currents are either miniscule or move so slowly as to be easily overtaken by an arthritic tortoise. Only an extremely small fraction of the waters of the Arctic ocean are in movement at any one time. This is not to say that there is no movement - there is, and can have effects in some very localized places, as determined primarily by bathymetry.
Movement of ice on the surface is primarily caused by wind. Even in the Fram strait, where there are two very distincts currents moving into and away from the Arctic ocean, the wind can reverse the flow of ice for days on end.
And the tidal effect so far north is also absolutely miniscule as can easily be seen on maps of such things. During one day the tides might move any given floe one hundred meters first one way and then the other. No surges, no large movements of water from one are to another.
The numbers are easy to find. The Fram strait current, which is by far the fastest of any current in the Arctic, has been clocked at 24cm/s, or 0.86 km/h - Zimmerframe speed.
And the total volume entering and leaving the entire Arctic Ocean is around 10 Sverdrup each way, or 10 million cubic meters per second. Looks imressive, but at 0.01 Km3 per second, it only clocks in at just over 300.000 km3 per year, compared with the total volume of the Arctic at 18,000,000 km3.
In other words, 1% of the volume of the Arctic ocean enters each year, and the same amount leaves again.
As for tidal movement, according the article
Arctic tidal current atlas by far the biggest tidal effect of 20cm/s was in the Nares strait (as expected - and not really in the Arctic Ocean itself). A more typical Arctic Ocean figure is around 1cm/s. Note that this is maximum speed, and reverses itself every 6 hours. So for our ice floe, 6 hours at 1cm/s is 100 meters one way, and then 100 meters the other way, twice daily!
