Monthly Temperature, Salinity and Transport Variability of the Bering Strait ThroughflowRebecca A Woodgate, Knut Aagaard, and Tom Weingartner |
![]() ONR N00014-99-1-0345
![]() NSF 0125082 |
Published in Geophysical Research Letters,
February 2005
Citation: Woodgate R. A., K. Aagaard,
T. J. Weingartner (2005), Monthly temperature, salinity, and transport variability
of the Bering Strait through flow, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L04601, doi:10.1029/2004GL021880.
Copyright 2005
American Geophysical Union. Further reproduction or electronic distribution
is not permitted.
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Please contact Rebecca Woodgate (woodgate@apl.washington.edu) for use of any of this material
Abstract
©
Polar Science Center, University of Washington, 2004
![]() Figure
1. Sea-surface temperature for 26th August 2004 in the
Bering Strait region, with mooring sites, A1, A2, A3
and A3' (black dots). (MODIS/Aqua level 1 image courtesy of Ocean
Color Data Processing Archive, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.)
Note the warm Alaskan Coastal Current in the
east. White areas indicate clouds.
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![]() Table
1. Climatological near-bottom temperature (T), salinity (S) and
principal component (V) of velocity (heading 329°) at A3, with estimated
errors in brackets (grey areas on Figures 2, 3, 4, and 5). Standard deviations
(thin black lines on Figures 2, 3, 4, and 5) are ~3 times these errors. Estimated
transports (Vol) have errors ~ 25%. Water column means
are probably ~ 0.5 to 1 psu fresher and
1 to 2°C warmer than these values
during summer/autumn (~ May - October). AM = annual mean.
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Figure 2. Salinity (top) and temperature
(bottom) from ~ 9 m above bottom at site A3 and A3'. Horizontal
axis is time starting in August with letters indicating calendar
months. Black stars mark the 14-year monthly climatology
of Table 1; thin black lines, the standard deviation; and
the grey band, errors obtained from variance of the monthly means.
Colored curves are 30-day running mean (with errors) from
the various years (red= deployed in 1990 or
1991; magenta=1992, 1993; yellow=1994, 1995,
green=1997, 1998, cyan=1999, 2000; blue=2001, 2002, black=2003).
A3' (deployed summer 1992 to summer 1995) data is not included in the
climatology. Water column means are probably ~ 0.5 to 1 psu fresher
and 1 to 2°C warmer than
these values during summer/autumn. |
![]() |
Figure 4. Principal component
of velocity (true heading 329°) at A3 and A3',
illustrated as per Figure 2. Estimated transports (labeled on right
axis) are as per Figure 5. |
![]() Figure
3. Fourteen year 30-day smoothed time-series of salinity (top)
and temperature (bottom) from ~ 9 m above bottom at
A1 (cyan), A2 (blue), A3 (red) and A3' (green - summer
1992 to summer 1995). Line width indicates errors. Grey area
and black lines are the climatology of Figure 2. Water
column means are probably ~ 0.5 to 1 psu fresher
and 1 to 2°C warmer than these values during summer/autumn.
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![]() Figure
5. Fourteen year 30-day smoothed time-series of principal component
of velocity (top) at A3 and A3' (true heading 329°) and (middle
and bottom) at A2 (true heading
0°). Velocity climatologies from A3 and A2 (with errors and
standard deviation) are marked in top and middle figures. A3' (deployed
summer 1992 to summer 1995) data is not included
in the climatology. Thin black line on bottom figure marks 30-day
smoothed reconstruction of velocity from a linear fit to the
NCEP 6 hourly winds (i.e. reconstructed velocity (cm/s)
= 32 + 3.4 x NCEP 10 m wind component (m/s) at heading
of 330°). (Coefficients obtained from a least squares
fit, see Wetal). Grey here indicates errors in the coefficients. Colors
are as per Figures 2 and 4. Conversions to transports (using cross-section
areas of ~ 2.6 km2 at A2 and ~ 3.9 km2 at A3) are marked on the right axis.
These transports are subject to ~ 20% errors in addition to those indicated
by error bars on the plots.
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© Polar Science Center, University of Washington, 2004
We gratefully acknowledge financial support for this work from the Office of Naval Research (ONR), High Latitude Dynamics program.
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