Long-term variability of Atlantic water temperature in the Svalbard fjords in conditions of past and recent global warming

Vol.5,No.2(2015)

Abstract

Within last decades, the climate of our planet has underwent remarkable changes. The most notable are those called "Arctic amplification." is the changes comprise a decrease in the area of ​​multi-years ice in 2007 and 2012 in polar regions of the Northern hemisphere, accompanied by the temperature rise of intermediate Atlantic waters, increasing surface temperature. In this paper, an analysis of long-term variability of temperature transformed Atlantic waters (TAW) in the fjords of the West-Spitsbergen island (Isfjorden, Grnfjorden, Hornsund and Kongsfjorden) in the first period (1920–1940) and modern (1990–2009) warming in the Arctic is reported. It is shown that the instrumental observation data corresponds to the periods of rise in temperature in the layer of the TAW and surface air temperature (SAT) for the area of ​​the Svalbard.


Keywords:
Arctic; Svalbard; climate variability; Atlantic waters
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