MFRI´s seminar: An updated Nordic Seas Overview – no sign of weakening transports or AMOC

MFRI´s seminar on 9 October at 10.30 will focus on Poleward Ocean heat transport. Professor Lars Henrik Smedsrud from the University of Bergen will give a talk called: An updated Nordic Seas Overview – no sign of weakening transports or AMOC. 

The seminar is held on-site in Hafnarfjordur, Iceland and online (link below) and is open for everyone.

About the seminar

Poleward Ocean heat transport is a key process in the global climate system and mostly occurs in the Atlantic sector through the Nordic Seas. We review the northward Atlantic Water (AW) heat transport, and heat loss to the atmosphere since 1900 based on sea ice-ocean simulations forced by reanalyzed atmospheric fields, a comprehensive hydrographic database since 1950 and AW inflow observations since 1996.

The Arctic Ocean, including the Nordic and Barents Seas, has warmed since the 1970s. This warming is congruent with observed increased AW ocean heat transport and sea-ice loss. The Barents Sea has warmed by about +2°C, lost most of the winter sea-ice, and lost more heat. The Greenland Sea shows an advective freshening event from 1980’s to 2000 that prevented deep water formation, but the intermediate water produced instead appears to be sufficient to maintain the dense outflow to the North Atlantic.

Heat loss to the atmosphere occurs in the Nordic Seas (60% of total) with large atmospheric year-to-year variability. Heat loss from the Barents Sea (∼30%) and other Arctic seas farther north (∼10%) is overall smaller but exhibits large positive trends. The AW heat transport, heat loss to the atmosphere, and dense outflow to the subpolar North Atlantic have thus all increased since 1900. These are consistently related through theoretical scaling. There are no signs of a weakened AW inflow or ocean heat transport around the Faroe Islands or along the Norwegian coast, but significant and expected wind-driven variability. These findings are at odds with predictions of a weakened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and indicate instead an increasing ocean heat transport towards the Arctic Ocean.

About the speaker

Lars Henrik Smedsrud has a wide experience in polar oceanography from Arctic and Antarctic waters. He is leading a network for polar researchers at the University in Bergen and he has been a professor II at the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) since 2014. Additionally, he has been a member of the scientific advisory board in the Arctic Ice Project (2020-2023), the US-Norway Arctic Fulbright Chair (2019-2020), part of the Scientific Steering Group in CliC (2015-2021, Climate and the Cryosphere, World Climate Research Programme) and a coordinator in Arctic ECRA (2014-2021, European Climate Research Alliance). He is also a Norwegian participant in the 'Fulbright Arctic Initiative' (2024-2026), a "Polar Expert" in an EU project that coordinates European Polar research, and a member of the 'Northern Ocean Panel' and active in producing a 'roadmap' on how we can help restoring Arctic sea ice lead by Ocean Visions. Recently, he also became a member of the Environmental panel in EASAC (European Academies Science Advisory Council) . Lars Henrik has extensive field experience, he has participated in several international laboratory experiments, and has worked with a number of different numerical models. Modelling activity includes circulation in the Arctic Ocean and the Nordic Seas, coupled column modelling of the Arctic Ocean, sub ice shelf circulation under the Fimbul Ice Shelf in Antarctica, polynya dynamics on Svalbard, and export and cover of Arctic sea-ice in Global Earth System Models.

Link to the online meeting (Teams)