GEOMAR - Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel

A time series of summer fresh water content anomalies (FWCA) over the Laptev and East Siberian sea shelves was constructed from historical hydrographic records for the period from 1920 to 2005. Results from a multiple regression between FCWA and various atmospheric and oceanic indices show that the fresh water content on the shelves is mainly controlled by atmospheric vorticity on quasi-decadal timescales. When the vorticity of the atmosphere on the shelves is antycyclonic, approximately 500 km3 of fresh water migrates from the eastern Siberian shelf to the Arctic Ocean through the northeastern Laptev Sea. When the vorticity of the atmosphere is cyclonic, this fresh water remains on the southern Laptev and East Siberian sea shelves. This FWCA represents approximately 35% of the total fresh water inflow provided by river discharge and local sea-ice melt, and is about ten times larger than the standard deviation of the Lena River summer long-term mean discharge. However, the large interannual and spatial variability in the fresh water content of the shelves, as well as the spatial coverage of the hydrographic data, makes it difficult to detect the long-term tendency of fresh water storage associated with climate change