Potential positive feedback between Greenland Ice Sheet melt and Baffin Bay heat content on the west Greenland shelf

Abstract

Greenland ice sheet meltwater runoff has been increasing in recent decades, especially in the southwest and the northeast. To determine the impact of this accelerating meltwater flux on Baffin Bay, we examine eight numerical experiments using an ocean‐sea ice model: Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean. Enhanced runoff causes shoreward increasing sea surface height and strengthens the stratification in Baffin Bay. The changes in sea surface height reduces the southward transport through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and strengthens the gyre circulation within Baffin Bay. The latter leads to further freshening of surface waters as it produces a larger northward surface freshwater transport across Davis Strait. Increasing the meltwater runoff leads to a warming and shallowing of the west Greenland Irminger water on the northwest Greenland shelf. These warmer waters can now more easily enter fjords on the Greenland coast and thus provide additional heat to accelerate the melting of marine‐terminating glaciers.

Emerging impact of Greenland meltwater on deepwater formation in the North Atlantic Ocean

“…2 and Supplementary Information 2). In accord with previous studies 18,19,23 , highest concentrations are evolving in Baffin Bay, where the runoff from northwest Greenland is superimposed by the northward flow of meltwater by the WGC, and reinforced by a reduction in the southward volume transport through Davis Strait 23,24 . Farther south the spreading in the highresolution model (Fig.…”

Meltwater pathways from marine terminating glaciers of the Greenland ice sheet

“…Although there is significant exchange from the WGC into the interior of the Labrador Sea [ Myers et al , ; Rykova et al , ], the freshwater released from the glaciers in southwest Greenland feeds the inshore shelf component of the WGC and is thus rapidly transported north to Baffin Bay (Figure S2). This is consistent with a more idealized modeling study [ Castro de la Guardia et al , ] and supports their contention that circulation within Baffin Bay and the exchange through the CAA are very dependent on the melt from West Greenland.…”

An Updated View on Water Masses on the pan‐West Greenland Continental Shelf and Their Link to Proglacial Fjords

“…It is the interactions between these two currents that determine the distribution of water masses within the region. The general description of the circulation system in Baffin Bay and Davis Strait is still disputable; it is largely supported by numerical models (Castro de la Guardia et al, 2015), but in situ observations are sparse (Cuny et al, 2005;Curry et al, 2014;Lin et al, 2018;Münchow et al, 2015;Myers et al, 2009;Rykova et al, 2015;Tang et al, 2004) and especially systematic synoptic pan-shelf measurements are few (Fenty et al, 2016). To the latter the Oceans Melting Greenland program is underway with a larger data set covering the northwest and east coast.…”