The Arctic Ocean Boundary Current along the Eurasian slope and the adjacent Lomonosov Ridge: Water mass properties, transports and transformations from moored instruments

Year-long (summer 1995 to 1996) time series of temperature, salinity and current velocity from three slope sites spanning the junction of the Lomonosov Ridge with the Eurasian continent are used to quantify the water properties, transformations and transport of the boundary current of the Arctic Ocean. The mean flow is cyclonic, weak (1 to 5 cm s ^-1), predominantly aligned along isobaths and has an equivalent barotropic structure in the vertical. We estimate the transport of the boundary current in the Eurasian Basin to be 5±1 Sv. About half of this flow is diverted north along the Eurasian Basin side of the Lomonosov Ridge. The warm waters (>1.4°C) of the Atlantic layer are also found on the Canadian Basin side of the ridge south of 86.5°N, but not north of this latitude. This suggests that the Atlantic layer crosses the ridge at various latitudes south of 86.5°N and flows southward along the Canadian Basin side of the ridge. Temperature and salinity records indicate a small (0.02 Sv), episodic flow of Canadian Basin deep water into the Eurasian Basin at ∼1700 m, providing a possible source for an anomalous eddy observed in the Amundsen Basin in 1996. There is also a similar flow of Eurasian Basin deep water into the Canadian Basin. Both flows probably pass through a gap in the Lomonosov Ridge at 80.4°N. A cooling and freshening of the Atlantic layer, observed at all three moorings, is attributed to changes (in temperature and salinity and/or volume) in the outflow from the Barents Sea the previous winter, possibly caused by an observed increased flow of ice from the Arctic Ocean into the Barents Sea. The change in water properties, which advects at ∼5 cm s ^-1 along the southern edge of the Eurasian Basin, also strengthens the cold halocline layer and increases the stability of the upper ocean. This suggests a feedback in which ice exported from the Arctic Ocean into the Barents Sea promotes ice growth elsewhere in the Arctic Ocean. The strongest currents recorded at the moorings (up to 40 cm s ^-1) are related to eddy features which are predominantly anticyclonic and, with a few exceptions, are of two main types: cold core eddies, confined to the upper 100-300 m, probably formed on the shelf, and warm core eddies of greater vertical extent, probably related to instabilities of an upstream front.