A 50-year Reconstructed Time Series of Nares Strait Winds

Nares Strait, a channel between Ellesmere Island and Greenland that is roughly 35 km wide and several hundred km long, connects the Arctic Ocean and Baffin Bay. It is an important conduit for freshwater and ice fluxes through the Canadian Archipelago. Analysis of two years of high-resolution mesoscale atmospheric model simulations of meteorological conditions in the Nares Strait region has revealed a systematic relationship between along-channel winds and along-channel pressure gradient, with strong ageostrophic northerly winds dominating the flow during fall, winter, and spring. From this empirical relation between along- channel winds and pressure gradient, a 50-year time series of Nares Strait winds has been constructed from historical surface pressure measurements at Alert and Thule. The record shows substantial interannual variability, and evidence of recent systematic change. The interannual variability is not explained by traditional indicators such as the Arctic Oscillation index, suggesting that a more detailed characterization of Arctic meteorological dynamics will be required to understand long-term records of regional variability.