Search

Only show content I have access to (0)

Chapters (1)

Over 3 years (1)

From year:

To year:

Apply

Earth and Environmental Sciences (1)

Cambridge University Press (1)

1 results

6 - The Arctic Mediterranean
- By Tor Eldevik, Lars H. Smedsrud, Camille Li, Marius Årthun, Erica Madonna, Lea Svendsen
Edited by Carlos R. Mechoso, University of California, Los Angeles
Book:

Interacting Climates of Ocean Basins

Published online:

13 January 2021

Print publication:

26 November 2020, pp 186-215
- Chapter
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation
Summary

The Arctic Mediterranean sits on the “top of the world” and connects the Atlantic and Pacific climate realms via the cold Arctic. It is the combined basin of the Nordic Seas (the Norwegian, Iceland, and Greenland seas) and the Arctic Ocean confined by the Arctic land masses – thus making it a Mediterranean ocean (Figure 6.1; e.g., Aagaard et al., 1985). The Arctic Mediterranean is small for a World Ocean but its heat loss and freshwater uptake is disproportionally large (e.g., Ganachaud and Wunsch, 2000; Eldevik and Nilsen, 2013; Haine et al., 2015). With the combined presence of the Gulf Stream’s northern limb, regional freshwater stratification, and a retreating sea-ice cover, it is likely where water mass contrasts, shifting air-ocean-ice interaction, and climate change are most pronounced in the present world oceans (Stocker et al., 2013; Vihma, 2014).