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The role of the Beaufort Gyre in Arctic climate variability: Seasonal to decadal climate scales
Author(s) -
Proshutinsky A.,
Bourke R. H.,
McLaughlin F. A.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2002gl015847
Subject(s) - ocean gyre , anticyclone , arctic , climatology , anomaly (physics) , oceanography , environmental science , beaufort sea , the arctic , climate change , beaufort scale , geology , subtropics , fishery , physics , condensed matter physics , biology
This paper presents a new hypothesis along with supporting evidence that the Beaufort Gyre (BG) plays a significant role in regulating the arctic climate variability. We propose and demonstrate that the BG accumulates a significant amount of fresh water (FW) during one climate regime (anticyclonic) and releases this water to the North Atlantic (NA) during another climate regime (cyclonic). This hypothesis can explain the origin of the salinity anomaly (SA) periodically found in the NA as well as its role in the decadal variability in the Arctic region.