Acceleration of sea-ice Melt Addition Into the Northern North Atlantic

Observations over the last decade suggest both a thinning of the Arctic sea-ice cover (Rothrock et al., 1999; Laxon et al., 2003) and a dramatic reduction in its spatial extent (Comiso, 2002; Stroeve et al., 2005). We detect a positive change of ~10 ‰ between 1998 and 2005 in the stable oxygen isotope composition of the net freshwater component in the East Greenland Current (EGC) and East Greenland Coastal Current (EGCC), key carriers of freshened surface waters out of the Arctic. This isotopic signal is unique in the context of oxygen isotope measurements in the northern North Atlantic region dating back to the early 1960s. We show that this signal reflects a remarkable increase in the sea-ice melt water transport within these currents, to the equivalent of a net minimum volumetric loss of multi-year ('permanent') Arctic sea-ice of 10 ± 3% per decade. This independent measurement therefore complements and corroborates the sea-ice reduction inferred from satellite data, and places it in a longer-term multi-decadal context. Our findings suggest that a large proportion of the sea-ice meltwater resulting from the rapid reduction of Arctic sea-ice between 1998 and 2005 is exported from the Arctic via the EGC/EGCC into the northern North Atlantic. Additionally it appears that this sea-ice meltwater export is not in phase with atmospheric circulation regimes such as the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation. These findings could have important ramifications for the global thermohaline circulation (e.g. Rahmstorf, 2005).