TY - JOUR
T1 - Holocene polynya dynamics and their interaction with oceanic heat transport in northernmost Baffin Bay
AU - Jackson, Rebecca
AU - Kvorning, Anna Bang
AU - Limoges, Audrey
AU - Georgiadis, Eleanor
AU - Olsen, Steffen M.
AU - Tallberg, Petra
AU - Andersen, Thorbjørn J.
AU - Mikkelsen, Naja
AU - Giraudeau, Jacques
AU - Massé, Guillaume
AU - Wacker, Lukas
AU - Ribeiro, Sofia
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank the Network of Centres of Excellence, ArcticNet, Fondation Total, the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (“GreenEdge” project) and crew of CCGS Amundsen on expeditions AMD15 and AMD16 for the collection and provision of the sediment cores. We thank Caroline Guilmette for carrying out the lipid biomarker analysis. This study was funded by the VILLUM Foundation, Denmark (grant VKR023454 to SR) and the ICE‐ARC project from the European Union 7th Framework Programme, grant 603887. RJ is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 846142. AL received financial support from NSERC-discovery grant (RGPIN-2018-03984). SMO has received funding from the National Centre for Climate Research (NCKF 2021) and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 727852.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - Baffin Bay hosts the largest and most productive of the Arctic polynyas: the North Water (NOW). Despite its significance and active role in water mass formation, the history of the NOW beyond the observational era remains poorly known. We reconcile the previously unassessed relationship between long-term NOW dynamics and ocean conditions by applying a multiproxy approach to two marine sediment cores from the region that, together, span the Holocene. Declining influence of Atlantic Water in the NOW is coeval with regional records that indicate the inception of a strong and recurrent polynya from ~ 4400 yrs BP, in line with Neoglacial cooling. During warmer Holocene intervals such as the Roman Warm Period, a weaker NOW is evident, and its reduced capacity to influence bottom ocean conditions facilitated northward penetration of Atlantic Water. Future warming in the Arctic may have negative consequences for this vital biological oasis, with the potential knock-on effect of warm water penetration further north and intensified melt of the marine-terminating glaciers that flank the coast of northwest Greenland.
AB - Baffin Bay hosts the largest and most productive of the Arctic polynyas: the North Water (NOW). Despite its significance and active role in water mass formation, the history of the NOW beyond the observational era remains poorly known. We reconcile the previously unassessed relationship between long-term NOW dynamics and ocean conditions by applying a multiproxy approach to two marine sediment cores from the region that, together, span the Holocene. Declining influence of Atlantic Water in the NOW is coeval with regional records that indicate the inception of a strong and recurrent polynya from ~ 4400 yrs BP, in line with Neoglacial cooling. During warmer Holocene intervals such as the Roman Warm Period, a weaker NOW is evident, and its reduced capacity to influence bottom ocean conditions facilitated northward penetration of Atlantic Water. Future warming in the Arctic may have negative consequences for this vital biological oasis, with the potential knock-on effect of warm water penetration further north and intensified melt of the marine-terminating glaciers that flank the coast of northwest Greenland.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85105783658&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41598-021-88517-9
DO - 10.1038/s41598-021-88517-9
M3 - Article
C2 - 33980864
AN - SCOPUS:85105783658
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 11
JO - Scientific Reports
JF - Scientific Reports
IS - 1
M1 - 10095
ER -