Freshwater outflow from a fast changing Arctic

Collaboration is sought between Laura de Steur at the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) and Mike Steele at the Polar Science Center (PSC) of the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. De Steur's research at NPI involves analysis of the Arctic water masses, with specific focus on freshwater, exiting the Arctic through Fram Strait with the use of temperature, salinity and velocity data from moored instruments from 1997 to 2006. In September 2008 the latest set of moorings shall be recovered which will add another two years worth of data to the time series. This recovery will be extremely exciting since the instruments have been out monitoring the outflow over the last two (2007 and 2008) Arctic summers which have shown sev ere sea-ice retreat, that had, most likely, a clear imprint on the Arctic water masses. The Arctic freshwater outflow in Fram Strait is heavily dependent on upstream variability and hence collaboration with Dr. Mike Steele at PSC is sought who is in charg e of the large monitoring program called 'The Freshwater Switchyard of the Arctic Ocean'. This project involves annual field work since 2003 covering the Lincoln Sea, north of Greenland, and monitors the Arctic freshwater in that region. We will exchange and compare our time series and a scientific analysis of the common data set enables us to identify how upstream events in the Lincoln Sea are related to the timing of downstream processes in the Fram Strait. This will increase our understanding of the A rctic Ocean in a changing climate.