Data from the East Greenland Current in 2002 are evaluated using optimum multiparameter analysis. The current is followed from north of Fram Strait to the Denmark Strait Sill and the contributions of different source waters, in mass fractions, are deduced. From the results it can be concluded that, at least in spring 2002, the East Greenland Current was the main source for the waters found at the Denmark Strait Sill, contributing to the overflow into the North Atlantic. The East Greenland Current carried water masses from different source regions in the Arctic Ocean, the West Spitsbergen Current and the Greenland Sea. The results agree well with the known circulation of the western Nordic Seas but also add knowledge both to the quantification and to the mixing processes, showing the importance of the locally formed Greenland Sea Arctic Intermediate Water for the East Greenland Current and the Denmark Strait. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sections of dissolved inorganic anthropogenic carbon (C-T(anthro)) based on 2002 data in the East Greenland Current (EGC) are presented. The C-T(anthro) has been estimated using a model based on optimum multiparameter analysis with predefined source water types. Values of C-T(anthro) have been assigned to the source water types through age estimations based on the transit time distribution (TTD) technique. The validity of this approach is discussed and compared to other methods. The results indicated that the EGC had rather high levels of C-T(anthro), in the whole water column, and the anthropogenic signal of the different source areas were detected along the southward transit. We estimated an annual transport of C-T(anthro). with the Denmark Strait overflow (sigma(theta) > 27.8 kg m(-3)) of similar to 0.036 +/- 0.005 Gt Cy-1. The mean C-T(anthro) concentration in this density range was similar to 30 mu mol kg(-1). The main contribution was from Atlantic derived waters, the Polar Intermediate Water and the Greenland Sea Arctic Intermediate Water. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Several methods to compute the anthropogenic component of total dissolved inorganic carbon (C-T(anthro)) the ocean have been reported, all in some way deducing (a) the effect by the natural processes, and (b) the background concentration in the pre-industrial scenario. In this work we present a method of calculating C-T(anthro) using nutrient and CFC data, which takes advantage of the linear relationships found between nitrate (N), phosphate (P) and CFC-11 in the Nordic Seas sub-surface waters. The basis of the method is that older water has lower CFC-11 concentration and also has been exposed to more sinking organic matter that has decayed, resulting in the slopes of P versus CFC-11 and N versus CFC-11 being close to the classic Redfield ratio of 1:16. Combining this with the slope in total alkalinity (A(T)) versus CFC-11 to correct for the dissolution of metal carbonates gives us the possibility to deduce the concentration of anthropogenic C-T in the Nordic Seas. This further allowed us to compute the inventory of anthropogenic C-T below 250 m in the Nordic Seas in spring 2002, to similar to 1.2 Gt C. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

To determine the exchanges between the Nordic Seas and the Arctic Ocean through Fram Strait is one of the most important aspects, and one of the major challenges, in describing the circulation in the Arctic Mediterranean Sea. Especially the northward transport of Arctic Intermediate Water (AIW) from the Nordic Seas into the Arctic Ocean is little known. In the two-ship study of the circulation in the Nordic Seas, Arctic Ocean - 2002, the Swedish icebreaker Oden operated in the ice-covered areas in and north of Fram Strait and in the western margins of Greenland and Iceland seas, while RV Knorr of Woods Hole worked in the ice free part of the Nordic Seas. Here two hydrographic sections obtained by Oden, augmented by tracer and velocity measurements with Lowered Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (LADCP), are examined. The first section, reaching from the Svalbard shelf across the Yermak Plateau, covers the region north of Svalbard where inflow to the Arctic Ocean takes place. The second, western, section spans the outflow area extending from west of the Yermak Plateau onto the Greenland shelf. Geostrophic and LADCP derived velocities are both used to estimate the exchanges of water masses between the Nordic Seas and the Arctic Ocean. The geostrophic computations indicate a total flow of 3.6 Sv entering the Arctic on the eastern section. The southward flow on the western section is found to be 5.1 Sv. The total inflow to the Arctic Ocean obtained using the LADCP derived velocities is much larger, 13.6 Sv, and the southward transport on the western section is 13.7 Sv, equal to the northward transport north of Svalbard. Sulphur hexafluoricle (SF6) originating from a tracer release experiment in the Greenland Sea in 1996 has become a marker for the circulation of AIW. From the geostrophic velocities we obtain 0.5 Sv and from the LADCP derived velocities 2.8 Sv of AIW flowing into the Arctic. The annual transport of SF6 into the Arctic Ocean derived from geostrophy is 5 kg/year, which is of the same magnitude as the observed total annual transport into the North Atlantic, while the LADCP measurements (19 kg/year) imply that it is substantially larger. Little SF6 was found on the western section, confirming the dominance of the Arctic Ocean water masses and indicating that the major recirculation in Fram Strait takes place farther to the south. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The 3.3 million km² marine ecosystem around the North Pole, defined as the Central Arctic Ocean (CAO), is a blind spot on the map of the world’s fish stocks. The CAO essentially comprises the permanently ice-covered deep basins and ridges outside the continental shelves, and is only accessible by ice-breakers. Traditional trawling for assessing fish stocks is impossible under the thick pack ice, and coherent hydroacoustic surveys are unachievable due to ice-breaking noise. Consequently, nothing is known about the existence of any pelagic fish stocks in the CAO, although juveniles of Boreogadus saida richly occur at the surface associated with the sea ice and ice-associated Arctogadus glacialis has been reported as well. We here present a first indication of a possible mesopelagic fish stock in the CAO. We had the opportunity to analyse a geophysical hydroacoustic data set with 13 time windows of usable acoustic data over a transect from 84.4 °N in the Nansen Basin, across the North Pole (90.0 °N), to 82.4 °N in the Canada Basin. We discovered a deep scattering layer (DSL), suggesting the presence of zooplankton and fish, at 300–600 m of depth in the Atlantic water layer of the CAO. Maximum possible fish abundance and biomass was very low; values of ca. 2,000 individuals km⁻² and ca. 50 kg km⁻² were calculated for the DSL in the North-Pole area according to a model assuming that all acoustic backscatter represents 15-cm long B. saida and/or A. glacialis. The true abundance and biomass of fish is even lower than this, but cannot be quantified from this dataset due to possible backscatter originating from pneumatophores of physonect siphonophores that are known to occur in the area. Further studies on the DSL of the CAO should include sampling and identification of the backscattering organisms. From our study we can conclude that if the central Arctic DSL contains fish, their biomass is currently too low for any sustainable fishery.