Description: Current meters measured temperature and velocity on 12 moorings from 1997 to 2014 in the deep Fram Strait between Svalbard and Greenland at the only deep passage from the Nordic Seas to the Arctic Ocean. The sill depth in Fram Strait is 2545 m. The observed temperatures vary between the colder Greenland Sea Deep Water and the warmer Eurasian Basin Deep Water. Both end members show a linear warming trend of 0.11±0.02°C/decade (GSDW) and 0.05±0.01°C/decade (EBDW) in agreement with the deep water warming observed in the basins to the north and south. At the current warming rates, GSDW and EBDW will reach the same temperature of -0.71°C in 2020. The deep water on the approximately 40 km wide plateau near the sill in Fram Strait is a mixture of the two end members with both contributing similar amounts. This water mass is continuously formed by mixing in Fram Strait and subsequently exported out of Fram Strait. Individual measurements are approximately normally distributed around the average of the two end members. Meridionally, the mixing is confined to the plateau region. Measurements less than 20 km to the north and south have properties much closer to the properties in the respective basins (Eurasian Basin and Greenland Sea) than to the mixed water on the plateau. The temperature distribution around Fram Strait indicates that the mean flow cannot be responsible for the deep water exchange across the sill. Rather, a coherence analysis shows that energetic mesoscale flows with periods of approximately 1-2 weeks advect the deep water masses across Fram Strait. These flows appear to be barotropically forced by upper ocean mesoscale variability. We conclude that these mesoscale flows make Fram Strait a hot spot of deep water mixing in the Arctic Mediterranean. The fate of the mixed water is not clear, but after the 1990s, it does not reflect the properties of Norwegian Sea Deep Water. We propose that it currently mostly fills the deep Greenland Sea.

Description: As part of the HAUSGARTEN long-term observatory, sediment trap deployments were carried out before, during, and after the anomalously warm Atlantic Water inflow observed from 2005 to 2007 in the eastern Fram Strait. Downward export of particulate organic carbon (POC), zooplankton fecal pellet carbon (FPC), and biogenic particulate silica (bPSi) were measured from August 2002 to June 2003 and from July 2004 to July 2008 to indirectly assess the impact of the warm anomaly on phytoplankton and zooplankton communities in the region. Lower and less frequent bPSi fluxes were observed during most of the warm anomaly period, reflecting a shift in phytoplankton community composition towards dominance of small-sized phytoplankton under warmer conditions. Lower FPC fluxes observed concurrently with the lower bPSi fluxes may indicate a decrease in fecal pellet production due to changing feeding conditions. In addition, the export of smaller fecal pellets in fall 2005 and spring 2006 suggests a dominance of smaller zooplankton during the warm anomaly. Nonetheless, bPSi and FPC export always increased in the presence of ice cover in the area above the sediment trap, even during the warm anomaly period, suggesting that sea ice is a key factor influencing the frequency of export events in the eastern Fram Strait. The scarcity of ice over the sampling area in 2005 and 2006 may partly be due to the warm anomaly, although solar radiation and ice drift due to wind stress also govern ice cover extent in the region. Overall, the warm anomaly resulted in a shift in the composition of the export fluxes when associated with an absence of ice cover in the eastern Fram Strait.

Description: Sea ice volume and extent currently experience massive reduction in the Arctic Ocean due to climate change. Our long-term study aims at tracing effects of environmental changes in pelagic and benthic systems and investigate accompanying impacts on the fate of organic matter produced in the upper water column on its way down to the seafloor. Since the start of our observations in 1999, we have already seen some effects and will present selected data sets from the upper water column and benthic data during summer expeditions as well as results from vertical particle flux measurements that were obtained from annually deployed sediment traps at the LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) observatory HAUSGARTEN in the eastern Fram Strait (79°/4°E) and on fewer occasions in the central Arctic Ocean (CAO). Highest biomass was found in the eastern Fram Strait and lowest in the heavily ice-covered regions in the CAO. Flux rates of POC where at least one order of magnitude lower in the CAO than in the eastern Fram Strait. While in the CAO ice algae dominate the recognizable flux fraction, faecal material prevailed in eastern Fram Strait traps. This points towards different systems of organic matter production and modification and, thus, different mechanisms determine the efficiency of the biological carbon pump. These differences are also reflected in the benthic communities in the CAO and in the eastern Fram Strait. These first results have shown the importance of long-term observations and encouraged the continuation of the Arctic Ocean Observing System FRAM (FRontiers in Arctic marine Monitoring) to record environmental and biological data at high temporal and spatial resolution.

Description: The collection of zooplankton swimmers and sinkers in time-series sediment traps provides unique insight into year-round and interannual trends in zooplankton population dynamics. These samples are particularly valuable in remote and difficult to access areas such as the Arctic Ocean, where samples from the ice-covered season are rare. In the present study, we investigated zooplankton composition based on swimmers and sinkers collected by sediment traps at water depths of 180–280, 800–1320, and 2320–2550 m, over a period of 16 yr (2000–2016) at the Long-Term Ecological Research observatory HAUSGARTEN located in the eastern Fram Strait (79°N, 4°E). The time-series data showed seasonal and interannual trends within the dominant zooplankton groups including copepoda, foraminifera, ostracoda, amphipoda, pteropoda, and chaetognatha. Amphipoda and copepoda dominated the abundance of swimmers while pteropoda and foraminifera were the most important sinkers. Although the seasonal occurrence of these groups was relatively consistent between years, there were notable interannual variations in abundance, suggesting the influence of various environmental condi- tions such as sea-ice dynamic and lateral advection of water masses, for example, meltwater and Atlantic water. Statistical analyses revealed a correlation between the Arctic dipole climatic index and sea-ice dynamics (i.e., ice coverage and concentration), as well as the importance of the distance from the ice edge on swimmer composition patterns and carbon export.