Measuring ocean currents in the Arctic

Ocean currents impact the transport and mixing of almost everything in the ocean: from fish larvae, to microplastics, to oil spills. Ocean currents move a great deal of heat around the globe and play an important role in Earth’s climate system. In the Arctic, currents may play a dominant role in recent mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet, bringing warmer water into contact with marine terminating glaciers. Limited observational evidence suggests that the salinity in fjords around Greenland has decreased. However, understanding the impacts of freshening is complicated by the complex impacts of the meltwater on ocean currents, as the meltwater can change the density and the stratification at both local (i.e., within a given fjord) and regional scales (i.e., in the Greenland and Labrador Seas). There is a critical need to understand these changes as they can impact marine ecosystems and the global thermohaline circulation. A lack of ocean current observations, however, impedes efforts to understand the ocean’s role in the rapidly changing Arctic.