Formation of Barents Sea Branch Water in the northeastern Barents Sea and St. Anna Trough

No abstracts are to be cited without prior reference to the author.

The Barents Sea throughflow accounts for approximately half of the Atlantic Water advection to the Arctic Ocean. Within the Barents Sea, the Atlantic Water undergoes considerable modifications before entering the Arctic Ocean through the St. Anna Trough. While the inflow area in the south-western Barents Sea is regularly monitored, oceanographic data from the outflow area to the northeast are scarce. Here, we use CTD (Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth) data from August/September 2008 to describe in detail the water masses present in the downstream area of the Barents Sea, their spatial distribution and transformations. We find that the Barents Sea Branch Water consists of both locally formed Cold Deep Water and modified Atlantic Water. While the Cold Deep Water represents a temperature and salinity minimum, the Atlantic component is identified by both temperature and salinity increasing with depth. As opposed to earlier reports, we find that the densest part of the Barents Sea Branch Water is more saline than the Fram Strait Branch Water observed within the St. Anna Trough. Despite the recent warming of the Barents Sea, locally formed bottom water observed in the St. Anna Trough matches the potential density at 2000 meter depth in the Arctic Ocean.