• Energy Research

Marine-terminating glaciers dominate the evolution of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) and its contribution to sea-level rise. Widespread glacier acceleration has been linked to the warming of ocean waters around the periphery of Greenland but a lack of information on the bathymetry of the continental shelf and glacial fjords has limited our ability to understand how subsurface, warm, salty ocean waters of Atlantic origin (AW) reach the glaciers and melt them from below. Here, we employ high-resolution, airborne gravity data (AIRGrav) in combination with multibeam echo sounding (MBES) data, to infer the bathymetry of the coastal areas of Northwest Greenland for NASA’s Ocean Melting Greenland (OMG) mission. High-resolution, AIRGrav data acquired on a 2 km spacing, 150 m ground clearance, with 1.5 mGal crossover error, is inverted in three dimensions to map the bathymetry. To constrain the inversion away from MBES data, we compare two methods: one based on the Direct Current (DC) shift of the gravity field (absolute minus observed gravity) and another based on the density of the bedrock. We evaluate and compare the two methods in areas with complete MBES coverage. We find the lowest standard error in bed elevation (±60 m) using the DC shift method. When applied to the entire coast of Northwest Greenland, the three-dimensional inversion reveals a complex network of connected sea bed channels, not known previously, that provide natural and varied pathways for AW to reach the glaciers across the continental shelf. The study demonstrates that the gravity approach offers an efficient and practical alternative to extensive ship mapping in ice-filled waters to obtain information critical to understanding and modeling ice-ocean interaction along ice sheet margins.

The end of 2016 is an uneasy moment for climate science in the United States. With a new Administration and a new Congress arriving in January 2017, future support for climate science and observing systems is uncertain. Against this backdrop, this special issue of Oceanography on ocean-ice interaction is timely. Although it was not our intent to highlight climate change, the fragile nature of Earth’s cryosphere and how it is responding to a warming world are essential parts of each article. Many aspects of the shrinking cryosphere are not yet understood, but the research described in these pages points to larger-​than-​anticipated—and alarming—changes to the planet’s large ice sheets, with associated future increases in global sea levels. Importantly, the articles in this special issue demonstrate the value to society of continuing vigorous scientific research that will enable us to better understand our planet’s rapidly changing polar environments.

Considerable advances in the global ocean observing system over the last two decades offers an opportunity to provide more quantitative information on changes in heat and freshwater storage. Variations in these storage terms can arise through internal variability and also the response of the ocean to anthropogenic climate change. Disentangling these competing influences on the regional patterns of change and elucidating their governing processes remains an outstanding scientific challenge. This challenge is compounded by instrumental and sampling uncertainties. The combined use of ocean observations and model simulations is the most viable method to assess the forced signal from noise and ascertain the primary drivers of variability and change. Moreover, this approach offers the potential for improved seasonal-to-decadal predictions and the possibility to develop powerful multi-variate constraints on climate model future projections. Regional heat storage changes dominate the steric contribution to sea level rise over most of the ocean and are vital to understanding both global and regional heat budgets. Variations in regional freshwater storage are particularly relevant to our understanding of changes in the hydrological cycle and can potentially be used to verify local ocean mass addition from terrestrial and cryospheric systems associated with contemporary sea level rise. This White Paper will examine the ability of the current ocean observing system to quantify changes in regional heat and freshwater storage. In particular we will seek to answer the question: What time and space scales are currently resolved in different regions of the global oceans? In light of some of the key scientific questions, we will discuss the requirements for measurement accuracy, sampling, and coverage as well as the synergies that can be leveraged by more comprehensively analyzing the multi-variable arrays provided by the integrated observing system.

Current climate change projections anticipate that global warming trends will lead to changes in the distribution and intensity of precipitation at a global level. However, few studies have corroborated these model-based results using historical precipitation records at a regional level, especially in our study region, California. In our analyses of 14 long-term precipitation records representing multiple climates throughout the state, we find northern and central regions increasing in precipitation while southern regions are drying. Winter precipitation is increasing in all regions, while other seasons show mixed results. Rain intensity has not changed since the 1920s. While Sacramento shows over 3 more days of rain per year, Los Angeles has almost 4 less days per year in the last century. Both the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) greatly influence the California precipitation record. The climate change signal in the precipitation records remains unclear as annual variability overwhelms the precipitation trends.

Analysis of ocean temperature and salinity data from profiling floats along with satellite measurements of sea surface height and the time variable gravity field are used to investigate the causes of global mean sea level rise between mid‐2003 and mid‐2007. The observed interannual and seasonal fluctuations in sea level can be explained as the sum of a mass component and a steric (or density related) component to within the error bounds of each observing system. During most of 2005, seasonally adjusted sea level was approximately 5 mm higher than in 2004 owing primarily to a sudden increase in ocean mass in late 2004 and early 2005, with a negligible contribution from steric variability. Despite excellent agreement of seasonal and interannual sea level variability, the 4‐year trends do not agree, suggesting that systematic long‐period errors remain in one or more of these observing systems.

Updated July 3, 2024 to correct column order--in the previous version, columns 2 and 3 were swapped in the txt file. Updated January 8, 2024 to include estimates through calendar year 2023. These files contain an estimate of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) volume and heat transports, computed using observations of temperature, salinity and subsurface velocity from the Argo array of profiling floats (DOI: 10.17882/42182 #98126), and satellite-based observations of sea level from altimetry (DOI: 10.48670/moi-00148). The estimates are computed using the techniques of Willis (2010) and Hobbs and Willis (2012). In addition, estimates of wind stress at the surface were estimated from European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecast, ERA5 analysis (DOI: 10.24381/cds.143582cf). Note that in all files, although there are 12 time-steps per year, each time step represents a 3-month average, so the time series is over sampled. The .txt file contains comma separated values of the time series, with 1 header line and the following columns, estimated as in Willis (2010) and Hobbs and Willis (2012): Column 1: Decimal year Column 2: Ekman Volume Transport (Sverdrups) Column 3: Northward Geostrophic Transport (Sverdrups) Column 4: Meridional Overturning Volume Transport (Sverdrups) Column 5: Meridional Overturning Heat Transport (PetaWatts) The file called “trans_Argo_ERA5.nc” contains an estimate of the geostrophic transport as a function of latitude, longitude, depth and time, for the upper 2000 m for latitudes near 41 N in the Atlantic Ocean, estimated as described in Willis (2010). Also included are Ekman Transport and Overturning Transport as functions of time and latitude for this region. The file called “Q_ARGO_obs_dens_2000depth_ERA5.nc” contains estimates of heat transport for these regions based on various assumptions about the temperature of the ocean at depths unmeasured by the Core Argo array (depths below 2000m), estimated as described in Hobbs and Willis (2012). These assumptions are described in the variable “Hpar”. If you use these data please cite: Willis, J. K., and Hobbs, W. R., Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation Near 41N from Altimetry and Argo Observations. Dataset access [YYYY-MM-DD] at 10.5281/zenodo.8170366. References: Hobbs, W. R., and J. K. Willis (2012), Midlatitude North Atlantic heat transport: A time series based on satellite and drifter data. J. Geophys. Res., 117, C01008, doi:10.1029/2011JC007039. Willis, J. K. (2010), Can in situ floats and satellite altimeters detect long-term changes in Atlantic Ocean overturning?, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L06602, doi:10.1029/2010GL042372. http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL042372.shtml Copernicus Climate Change Service, Climate Data Store, (2018): Sea level gridded data from satellite observations for the global ocean from 1993 to present. Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate Data Store (CDS). DOI: 10.24381/cds.4c328c78 (Accessed on 21-Dec-2022) Hersbach, H., et al. (2017): Complete ERA5 from 1940: Fifth generation of ECMWF atmospheric reanalyses of the global climate. Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Data Store (CDS). DOI: 10.24381/cds.143582cf (Accessed on 24-Dec-2022) Wong, A. P. S., et al. (2020), Argo Data 1999–2019: Two Million Temperature-Salinity Profiles and Subsurface Velocity Observations From a Global Array of Profiling Floats, Frontiers in Marine Science, 7(700), doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2020.00700 (Accessed on 19-Dec-2022)