Description: Highlights: • A joint analysis of deep current meter records in the western North Atlantic. • Intra-seasonal variability dominates the deep boundary current. • Topographic waves near 10d periods trapped over steep topography. • Basin centers are showing longer periods (50d) caused by the eddy field. • Observed variability characteristics compared to high resolution model simulation. Abstract The Deep Western Boundary Current (DWBC) along the western margin of the subpolar North Atlantic is an important component of the deep limb of the Meridional Overturning near its northern origins. A network of moored arrays from Denmark Strait to the tail of the Grand Banks has been installed for almost two decades to observe the boundary currents and transports of North Atlantic Deep Water as part of an internationally coordinated observatory for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. The dominant variability in all of the moored velocity time series is in the week-to-month period range. While the temporal characteristics of this variability change only gradually between Denmark Strait and Flemish Cap, a broad band of longer term variability is present farther along the path of the DWBC at the Grand Banks and in the interior basins (Labrador and Irminger Seas). The vigorous intra-seasonal variability may well mask possible interannual to decadal variability that is typically an order of magnitude smaller than the high-frequency fluctuations. Here, the intra-seasonal variability is quantified at key positions along the DWBC path using both, observations and high resolution model data. The results are used to evaluate the model circulation, and in turn the model is used to relate the discrete measurements to the overall pattern of the subpolar circulation. Topographic waves are found to be trapped by the steep topography all around the western basins, the Labrador and Irminger Seas. In the Labrador Sea, the high intra-seasonal variability of the boundary current regime is separated by a region of extremely low variability in narrow recirculation cells from the basin interior. There, the variability is also on intra-seasonal timescales, but at much longer periods around 50 days.

Description: The ocean regulates the global climate, provides humans with natural resources such as food, materials, important substances, and energy, and is essential for international trade and recreational and cultural activities. Together with human development and economic growth, free access to, and availability of, ocean resources and services have exerted strong pressure on marine systems, ranging from overfishing, increasing resource extraction, and alteration of coastal zones to various types of thoughtless pollution. International cooperation and effective governance are required to protect the marine environment and promote the sustainable use of marine resources in such a way that due account can be taken of the environmental values of current generations and the needs of future generations. The high seas deserve particular attention since they suffer from a number of regulatory shortcomings due to the basic structures set out under international law. Against this backdrop, developing and agreeing on a focussed Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) specifically for the Ocean and Coasts could prove to be an essential element to provide guidance and a framework for regional implementation agreements.

Description: The ocean regulates the global climate, provides humans with natural resources such as food, materials, important substances, and energy, and is essential for international trade and recreational and cultural activities. Together with human development and economic growth, free access to, and availability of, ocean resources and services have exerted strong pressure on marine systems, ranging from overfishing, increasing resource extraction, and alteration of coastal zones to various types of thoughtless pollution. Both economic theory and many case studies suggest that there is no “tragedy of the commons” but a “tragedy of open access”. With high likeliness, structures of open access are non-sustainable. International cooperation and effective governance are required to protect the marine environment and promote the sustainable use of marine resources in such a way that due account can be taken of the environmental values of current generations and the needs of future generations. For this purpose, developing and agreeing on one Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) specifically for the Ocean and Coasts could prove to be an essential element. The new SDGs will build upon the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and replace them by 2015. Ensuring environmental sustainability in a general sense is one of the eight MDGs but the ocean is not explicitly addressed. Furthermore, the creation of a comprehensive underlying set of ocean sustainability targets and effective indicators developed within a global Future Ocean Spatial Planning (FOSP) process would help in assessing the current status of marine systems, diagnosing ongoing trends, and providing information for inclusive, forward-looking, and sustainable ocean governance

Description: Highlights: • Regional initiatives have recently developed in areas beyond national jurisdiction. • They advance the governance of these areas while the global discussions are on-going. • They however face many challenges, which should be tackled. • Global discussions and regional actions are two interconnected processes. Abstract: The development of regional initiatives for the protection of the environment is a cornerstone of international environmental policies. With regard to marine and coastal issues, this regionalisation has mainly been taking place through regional seas programmes and Regional Fisheries Management Organisations. Some regional initiatives and organisations have progressively extended their activities to areas beyond national jurisdiction. This paper aims at analysing these recent developments, highlighting their interests and challenges, and proposing options to strengthen the efficiency of regional actions in these areas. It also highlights the need to consider the global discussions on a possible new global agreement and the development of regional actions as two interconnected processes.

Description: A mechanism is advanced for explaining the Antarctic warm events from 90 to 30ka BP which involves meltwater-induced changes in the salinity gradient across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) and consequent changes in the poleward heat transport by ocean eddies. Based on simple linear scale analysis, the mechanism is shown to yield warming in the Antarctic interior of roughly the magnitude seen in Antarctic ice-core records (∼2 °C) in response to ice discharges into the North Atlantic. Consistent with observations, the mechanism produces gradual Antarctic warming and cooling, as dictated by the time required for salinity anomalies to build up and dissipate across the ACC. The mechanism also allows the onset of warming or cooling to be tied to changes in Atlantic overturning, which is relevant here, not for influencing ocean heat transport directly, but for influencing the routing of meltwater from the North Atlantic into the Southern Ocean. The ideas presented here highlight the possibility that eddy processes in the ocean may play a first-order role in aspects of climate variability on millennial time scales.

Description: The Copenhagen Diagnosis is a summary of the global warming peer reviewed science since 2007. Produced by a team of 26 scientists led by the University of New South Wales Climate Research Centre, the Diagnosis convincingly proves that the effects of global warming have gotten worse in the last three years. It is a timely update to the UN’s Intercontinental Panel on Climate Change 2007 Fourth Assessment document (IPCC AR4). The report places the blame for the century long temperature increase on human factors and says the turning point ";must come soon";. If we are to limit warming to 2 degrees above pre-industrial values, global emissions must peak by 2020 at the latest and then decline rapidly. The scientists warned that waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized. By 2050 we will effectively need to be in a post-carbon economy if we are to avoid unlivable temperatures.

Description: The Vema Channel represents the only major conduit through which the deepest and coldest (〈0.2 °C potential temperature) Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) flows from the Argentine into the Brazil Basin. From 2003 to 2007 two current meter moorings were present on each side of the Vema Sill, close to the narrowest spot of the Vema Channel. The data from the moorings are compared with earlier current and temperature observations. On average the maximum current core lies ∼100 m above the bottom of the sill with a mean northward speed of 0.3 m s−1. Farther up in the water column where Lower Circumpolar Deep Water and North Atlantic Deep Water prevail, one finds a level of sluggish currents with a southward tendency in the sub-centimeter-per-second range. The lower boundary of a layer of ‘no’ motion was observed at ∼3700 m depth where the mean potential temperature amounts to 1.5 °C. The evolution of the abyssal warming phenomenon over the last decades with notable fluctuations at the choke point between the Argentine and the Brazil Basin differs from the more stable attitude of deep horizontal currents. Starting with CTD observations in 1972 we find a steady increase of temperatures of the coldest AABW in the Vema Channel. This general trend of rising abyssal potential temperatures of almost 2 mKelvin per year is based on mostly annual CTD observations. The overall warming trend is fully compatible with our three-year moored temperature series in agreement with earlier records with high temporal resolution. Distinct frequently fluctuating horizontal current shear between the western and eastern sides of the Vema Sill may be explained by two different catchment areas for AABW at the mouth of the Vema Channel. One pathway originates at the American continental rise and advects bottom water in form of the deep western boundary current. A second pathway is supplied by an eastern boundary current along the Mid Atlantic Ridge in the Argentine Basin. Both source waters merge at the channel entrance, mix, and their respective strengths can alternate within the sill area.

Description: A technique for the analysis of data from a subsurface moored upward-looking acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) to determine ice coverage, draft and velocity is presented and applied to data collected in Marguerite Bay on the western Antarctic Peninsula shelf. This method provides sea-ice information when no dedicated upward-looking sonar (ULS) data are available. Ice detection is accomplished using windowed variances of ADCP vertical velocity, vertical error velocity, and surface horizontal speed. ADCP signal correlation and backscatter intensity were poor indicators of the presence of ice at this site. Ice draft is estimated using a combination of ADCP backscatter data, atmospheric and oceanic pressure data, and information about the thermal stratification. This estimate requires corrections to the ADCP-derived range for instrument tilt and sound speed profile. Uncertainties of ±0.20 m during midwinter and ±0.40 m when the base of the surface mixed layer is above the ADCP for ice draft are estimated based on: (a) a Monte Carlo simulation, (b) uncertainty in the sound speed correction, and (c) performance of the zero-draft estimate during times of known open water. Ice velocity is taken as the ADCP horizontal velocity in the depth bin specified by the range estimate.