Jennifer A MacKinnon, Harper L Simmons, John Hargrove, Jim Thomson, Thomas Peacock, Matthew H Alford, Benjamin I Barton, Samuel Boury, Samuel D Brenner, Nicole Couto, Seth L Danielson, Elizabeth C Fine, Hans C Graber, John Guthrie, Joanne E Hopkins, Steven R Jayne, Chanhyung Jeon, Thilo Klenz, Craig M Lee, Yueng-Djern Lenn, Andrew J Lucas, Björn Lund, Claire Mahaffey, Louisa Norman, Luc Rainville, Madison M Smith, Leif N Thomas, Sinhué Torres-Valdés, Kevin R Wood
Unprecedented quantities of heat are entering the Pacific sector of the Arctic Ocean through Bering Strait, particularly during summer months. Though some heat is lost to the atmosphere during autumn cooling, a significant fraction of the incoming warm, salty water subducts (dives beneath) below a cooler fresher layer of near-surface water, subsequently extending hundreds of kilometers into the Beaufort Gyre. Upward turbulent mixing of these sub-surface pockets of heat is likely accelerating sea ice melt in the region...
April 23, 2021: Nature Communications