During the early 1980s, the water observed in the Greenland Sea below 1700m depth had salinities of about 34.890 (Fig. 2b). Between 1981 and 1994, the salinity increased monotonically. The deep water reached salinities of 34.895 in 1989 and 34.900 in late 1994. In the depth range between 1200m and 1700m, salinity changes were small with values between 34.890 and 34.895 without showing a clear trend. The boundary of the low salinity water (S < 34.880) found in the upper part of the water column deepened between 1989 and 1994 from 150m depth to 950m depth, respectively. Again, there are not enough observations to address the seasonally variable surface water. However, since 1988, all the observations available to us were collected during the month of November and can therefore be compared. This comparison indicates an increase of surface (between 0m and 25m depth) salinity between 1991 and 1994 from 34.50 to 34.85, respectively.
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Fig. 2: Time series of (b) salinity in the central Greenland Sea. The time series are presented as sections with time as the horizontal and depth as the vertical axes. The color bars are chosen to reflect changes in the deep water. Each year marker indicates the first of January of the particular year. |
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