Winter sea ice melting in the Atlantic Water subduction area, Svalbard Norway

Herein, we study a small area along the shelf west of Spitsbergen, near Prins Karls Forland, where warm, saline Atlantic Water of the West Spitsbergen Current currently first encounters sea ice. This sea ice is drifting in a coastal current that carries Arctic Water originating from the Barents Sea northward over the shelf. Our aim was to investigate whether melting of sea ice by Atlantic Water in this area might be a significant factor that could contribute to the formation of a cold halocline layer that isolates the sea ice from further melting from below. Observations of temperature and salinity profiles were collected during two winters, via CTD‐SRDL instruments deployed on harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina ), and fed into a heat and freshwater budget box model in order to quantify the importance of melting relative to other processes that could transform the shelf water mass during winter. Cross‐frontal exchange of Atlantic Water from the West Spitsbergen Current, driven by buoyancy forcing rather than Ekman upwelling, was determined to be the source of the heat that melted drift ice on the shelf. Some local sea ice formation did take place, but its importance in the total heat and freshwater budgets appeared to be minor. The data suggest that the production of a cold halocline layer was preceded by southerly winds and rapid drift ice melting.