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Canada Basin: major mechanisms of halocline formation and variability

A. Nguyen, Ye. Aksenov, E. Watanabe

These studies will be focused on investigations of: How to better model the arctic halocline which creates the stratification necessary to insulate perennial sea ice from the Atlantic Water layer? and How to avoid restoring and flux correction procedures in numerical models? These studies will also answer scientific questions such as: what is the role of different mechanisms influencing heat fluxes in the ocean - sea-ice - atmosphere system? Other scientific questions and conditions of numerical experiments and model intercomparisons are presented below.

a.     Questions :

  • Halocline represented in models? Changes over time? Compare station data with model output in Canadian Basin
  • Sources of the Halocline waters in Canadian Basin

b.     Experiments :

  • Compare simulated and observed depth and thickness of the halocline layer in Canadian Basin and investigate their variability.
  • Use passive tracers to detect regional sources of the halocline waters

c.     Which fields:

  • Monthly-mean mixed layer depth and depth of the Atlantic core (depth of Tmax for 34.5<S) in the Arctic Ocean.
  • Monthly-mean TS and fields of the passive tracers representing shelf waters, Pacific Water, ice melt, and ventilation tracer.
  • TS on the virtual model stations at the CTD locations or if we can construct/obtain transects from the data then we need co-located model sections: CTD data from SCICEX for 1993-2000, Beaufort Gyre Experiment Project 2003-2005 and ITP data (www.whoi.edu/itp) 2004-2007.