Tracer‐derived freshwater composition of the Siberian continental shelf and slope following the extreme Arctic summer of 2007

We investigate the freshwater composition of the shelf and slope of the Arctic Ocean north of the New Siberian Islands using geochemical tracer data (? 18O, Ba, and PO*4) collected following the extreme summer of 2007. We find that the anomalous wind patterns that partly explained the sea ice minimum at this time also led to significant quantities of Pacific?derived surface water in the westernmost part of the Makarov Basin. We also find larger quantities of meteoric water near Lomonosov Ridge than were found in 1995. Dissolved barium is depleted in the upper layers in one region of our study area, probably as a result of biological activity in open waters. Increasingly ice?free conditions compromise the quantitative use of barium as a tracer of river water in the Arctic Ocean.

[1]  I. Rigor,et al.  Sea-ice production and transport of pollutants in the Laptev Sea, 1979-1993. , 1997, The Science of the total environment.

[2]  Lee W. Cooper,et al.  Flow‐weighted values of runoff tracers (δ18O, DOC, Ba, alkalinity) from the six largest Arctic rivers , 2008 .

[3]  Julienne C. Stroeve,et al.  Arctic Sea Ice Extent Plummets in 2007 , 2008 .

[4]  Fridtjof Nansen,et al.  The polar oceans and their role in shaping the global environment : the Nansen centennial volume , 1994 .

[5]  Hajo Eicken,et al.  Wind‐driven summer surface hydrography of the eastern Siberian shelf , 2005 .

[6]  C. Guay,et al.  A survey of dissolved barium in the estuaries of major Arctic rivers and adjacent seas , 1998 .

[7]  Thomas J. Weingartner,et al.  The Summer Hydrography and Surface Circulation of the East Siberian Shelf Sea , 1999 .

[8]  Ursula Schauer,et al.  The Arctic Ocean Boundary Current along the Eurasian slope and the adjacent Lomonosov Ridge: Water mass properties, transports and transformations from moored instruments , 2001 .

[9]  Thomas J. Weingartner,et al.  The Siberian Coastal Current: A wind‐ and buoyancy‐forced Arctic coastal current , 1999 .

[10]  H. Stecher,et al.  Rapid barium removal in the Delaware estuary , 1999 .

[11]  I. Dmitrenko,et al.  The long-term and interannual variability of summer fresh water storage over the eastern Siberian shelf: Implication for climatic change , 2008 .

[12]  M. Holland,et al.  Arctic sea ice decline: Faster than forecast , 2007 .

[13]  Michael Steele,et al.  What drove the dramatic retreat of arctic sea ice during summer 2007? , 2008 .

[14]  E. Carmack,et al.  On the halocline of the Arctic Ocean , 1981 .

[15]  S. Epstein,et al.  Variation of O18 content of waters from natural sources , 1953 .

[16]  H. Göte Östlund,et al.  Arctic Ocean water mass balance from isotope data , 1984 .

[17]  C. Guay,et al.  Barium as a tracer of Arctic halocline and river waters , 1997 .

[18]  Leif G. Anderson,et al.  Formation and evolution of the surface mixed layer and halocline of the Arctic Ocean , 1996 .

[19]  Walker O. Smith,et al.  9 – Polar Phytoplankton , 1990 .

[20]  Muyin Wang,et al.  Future regional Arctic sea ice declines , 2007 .

[21]  Peter Schlosser,et al.  River runoff, sea ice meltwater, and Pacific water distribution and mean residence times in the Arctic Ocean , 2001 .

[22]  Michael Steele,et al.  Retreat of the cold halocline layer in the Arctic Ocean , 1998 .

[23]  Kelly Kenison Falkner,et al.  Wind‐driven transport pathways for Eurasian Arctic river discharge , 2001 .

[24]  Christoph Heinze,et al.  How much deep water is formed in the Southern Ocean , 1998 .

[25]  Michael P. Meredith,et al.  Quantitative considerations of dissolved barium as a tracer in the Arctic Ocean , 2002 .

[26]  Peter Schlosser,et al.  Arctic river-runoff: mean residence time on the shelves and in the halocline , 1994 .