AEROSTATS

Aerial Experimental Remote sensing of Ocean Salinity, heaT, Advection and Thermohaline Shifts

Rapid melting of Arctic sea ice and Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) causes significant freshwater input to the North Atlantic (NA), with the potential to shutdown upper ocean convection in the NA Subpolar Gyre (SPG). The influx of fresh water makes surface waters lighter and harder to mix into the deep ocean, thus impacting convection. Shutdown of convection has grave consequences, including harmful impacts on marine ecosystems, changes in ocean circulation and feedbacks to the atmosphere that drastically alter European weather patterns and extremes. Processes affecting freshwater and heat transport leading to a potential ocean convection collapse in the SPG involve: atmosphere-ocean-ice interactions, including extreme ocean surface fresh water and heat fluxes; cross-shelf and within fjord advection of Atlantic warm water and the mixing by ocean eddies of fresh coastal boundary current water into the SPG interior. Such processes challenge the resolution limits of CMIP climate models and are beyond the reach of today’s observational capability.