RAPID - Round 1 - Processes controlling dense water formation and transport on Arctic continental shelves Project

Introduction

The Barents Sea is an important site for the production of dense intermediate water. Up to one half of this intermediate water flows into the North Atlantic over the Scotland-Greenland Ridge, constituting an important branch of the global thermohaline circulation. The presence of numerous coastal polynyas and the relatively low river input into the Barents Sea explain why this region is a significant site for water for water mass transformation. Parameterisations for dense water production in polynyas for application in non-polynya resolving ocean circulation models, will be developed and tested in a coupled sea ice-shelf sea model of the Barents Sea. The latter will be used to study present day water mass transformation processes and to predict how they will change in a warmer climate.

Project Duration: 1 Oct 2003 - 12 Jan 2007

This project is funded by NERC - Lead Grant Ref. NER/T/S/2002/00425 - through the RAPID Climate Change NERC directed mode programme.

Availability of data

The project involves running a regional model for the Barents Sea to examine and quantify the amount of dense water formed in polynyas and identify the pathways it follows. Sea ice processes will be parameterised at Keele and coupled with the POLCOMS model.

The runs will result in gridded daily fields of ice concentration and depth along with 3-D hydrography (salinity, temperature and flow fields) over approximately 34 vertical levels. Tidal constituents will be supplied for each point. No biology is involved (i.e. ERSEM). The meteorological forcing data and boundary conditions obtained from the NRL model (typically a few percent of the total output), will also be stored. The model runs will be typically a few years in duration, using scenarios of high NAO, low NAO and perhaps an 'average' year.

The regional model will test polynya parameterisation. The principal output from the work will be an estimate of the quantity of dense water formed in polynya systems over a freezing season. The model resolution covering the Barents Sea will be approximately 2-3 km, with perhaps a number of nested regions at 1 km to test sea ice parameterisations

The main output will be approximately 3 or 4 model runs that will result in publications, and will be included in the RAPID dataset and final product.

Access to data and information

Data and software supplied from this project to the BADC will be stored in the BADC RAPID archive.

Access to the archive is currently restricted to participants to this particular project. If you are a programme participant and would like to access this RAPID project data, then please apply for access^* to the RAPID data.

You will be requested to abide by the RAPID Climate Change Data Policy.
Data management, availability and use are ruled by the RAPID Climate Change Programme Data Management Plan (PDF document).
Access to Hadley Centre model data held at the BADC is subject to the signature of the NERC-Met Office agreement.

^* Note that to apply for access to this dataset, you should first register as a BADC user (anyone is allowed to register). If you are already a registered BADC user, skip this step. If you have forgotten your BADC user ID and/or password, please contact the BADC helpdesk at badc@rl.ac.uk. To register as a new BADC user, please follow the instructions online.

Citation

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Date of citation

Who to contact

This RAPID project is led by Prof Andrew Willmott of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, with co-investigators at the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory and Keele University.

General queries about these pages or browsing the data should be directed to the BADC support line.

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