We assess the contribution of flow over the Northeast Greenland Shelf (NEGS) to the total freshwater transport (FWT) through the Fram Strait. We analyze available observations since 2013 consisting of hydrographic sections, new mooring data, and surface-geostrophic velocity and ERA5 winds. We provide first seasonal estimates of the FWT over the entire shelf and find a net southward FWT between 47 and 56 mSv (reference salinity 34.9), or similar to 40%-45% of the total FWT through the Fram Strait. In summer, the long-term mean FWT east of 8 degrees W cumulates to 27 mSv southward, there is no trend toward increasing FWT, and new mooring data show a large seasonal cycle. We show that the NEGS contributes significantly to the Arctic freshwater outflow, however, uncertainty is high. To close the Arctic freshwater budget and provide better FWT estimates to the North Atlantic, sustained year-round observations on the NEGS are essential.

Changes in the provenance and composition of waters exported from the Arctic Ocean have the potential to impact large-scale ocean circulation processes in the sub-polar North Atlantic. The main conveyor of waters from the Arctic Ocean to lower latitudes is the East Greenland Current (EGC), flowing southward through Fram Strait. It is therefore crucial to determine and monitor the composition of the EGC, a mixture of polar waters of different origins. Here we present a pilot study on the potential of the long-lived anthropogenic radionuclides 129I and 236U as tracers of the EGC water mass composition, based on a time series of 236U and 129I concentrations measured across Fram Strait in the years 2016, 2018, and 2019. The overall spatial distribution of 236U and 129I was similar among the three sampling years, but a decrease in concentration was observed in the upper water column of the EGC. The observed changes could only partly be attributed to the transient nature of the radionuclide signals, but instead pointed to changes in the EGC water mass composition. To investigate these changes, 236U and 129I were first combined in a mixing model featuring the endmembers expected in the upper EGC. We distinguished between Pacific Water (PAC), Atlantic Water advected from the Arctic Ocean (ATL), and Atlantic Water recirculating in Fram Strait (RAC). In 236U-129I tracer space, PAC and RAC showed similar tracer signatures, but were well distinguished from ATL. From 2016 to 2018/19, a decrease in the ATL fraction was evident for the upper EGC. Secondly, the respective combination of 236U and 129I with salinity showed differences in absolute water mass fractions, but similar temporal trends. Both suggested an increase in PAC of about 20% for the uppermost layer of the EGC (samples with potential densities below 26.5) and an increase in RAC of about 10−20 % for denser samples. 129I and 236U, in combination with salinity, were shown to be suitable tracers to investigate water mass composition in Fram Strait, with the advantage that they can distinguish Atlantic Water advected from the Arctic Ocean from that recirculating in Fram Strait.

We estimated the magnitude and composition of southward liquid freshwater transports in the East Greenland Current near 79° N in the Western Fram Strait between 1998 and 2011. Previous studies have found this region to be an important pathway for liquid freshwater export from the Arctic Ocean to the Nordic Seas and the North Atlantic subpolar gyre. Our transport estimates are based on six hydrographic surveys between June and September and concurrent data from moored current meters. We combined concentrations of liquid freshwater, meteoric water (river water and precipitation), sea ice melt and brine from sea ice formation, and Pacific Water, presented in Dodd et al. (2012), with volume transport estimates from an inverse model. The average of the monthly snapshots of southward liquid freshwater transports between 10.6° W and 4° E is 100 ± 23 mSv (3160 ± 730 km3 yr−1), relative to a salinity of 34.9. This liquid freshwater transport consists of about 130% water from rivers and precipitation (meteoric water), 30% freshwater from the Pacific, and −60% (freshwater deficit) due to a mixture of sea ice melt and brine from sea ice formation. Pacific Water transports showed the highest variation in time, effectively vanishing in some of the surveys. Comparison of our results to the literature indicates that this was due to atmospherically driven variability in the advection of Pacific Water along different pathways through the Arctic Ocean. Variations in most liquid freshwater component transports appear to have been most strongly influenced by changes in the advection of these water masses to the Fram Strait. However, the local dynamics represented by the volume transports influenced the liquid freshwater component transports in individual years, in particular those of sea ice melt and brine from sea ice formation. Our results show a similar ratio of the transports of meteoric water and net sea ice melt as previous studies. However, we observed a significant increase in this ratio between the surveys in 1998 and in 2009. This can be attributed to higher concentrations of sea ice melt in 2009 that may have been due to enhanced advection of freshwater from the Beaufort Gyre to the Fram Strait. Known trends and variability in the Arctic liquid freshwater inflow from rivers are not likely to have had a significant influence on the variation of liquid freshwater component transports between our surveys. On the other hand, known freshwater inflow variability from the Pacific could have caused some of the variation we observed in the Fram Strait. The apparent absence of a trend in southward liquid freshwater transports through the Fram Strait and recent evidence of an increase in liquid freshwater storage in the Arctic Ocean raise the question: how fast will the accumulated liquid freshwater be exported from the Arctic Ocean to the deep water formation regions in the North Atlantic and will an increased export occur through the Fram Strait.

Observations since the 1950s suggest that the Arctic climate system is changing in response to rising global air temperatures. These changes include an intensified hydrological cycle, Arctic sea ice decline, and increasing Greenland glacial melt. Here we use new δ18O data from the East Greenland Current system at Cape Farewell and Denmark Strait to determine the relative proportions of the freshwater components within the East Greenland Current and East Greenland Coastal Current. Through the comparison of these new data with historical studies, we gain insight into the changing Arctic freshwater balance. We detect three key shifts in the net freshwater component δ18O values, these are (1) a shift to lighter values in the late 1990s that possibly indicates an increased Greenland glacial melt or a reduced sea ice melt admixture and (2) a short‐term shift to a ∼10‰ heavier value in 2005 followed by (3) a shift back to the historic average value in 2008. The latter fluctuation reflects a short‐term dramatic rise and fall of sea ice meltwater addition into the East Greenland Current system. We infer that this anomalously large inclusion of sea ice meltwater resulted from a short‐term peak in Arctic sea ice export via Fram Strait. Our findings, therefore, suggest that the freshwater carried in the East Greenland Current system is susceptible to short‐term, high‐amplitude changes in the upstream freshwater balance, which may have important ramifications for the global thermohaline circulation through the suppression of deep water formation in the North Atlantic.

Limitations of access have long restricted exploration and investigation of the cavities beneath ice shelves to a small number of drillholes. Studies of sea-ice underwater morphology are limited largely to scientific utilization of submarines. Remotely operated vehicles, tethered to a mother ship by umbilical cable, have been deployed to investigate tidewater-glacier and ice-shelf margins, but their range is often restricted. The development of free-flying autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) with ranges of tens to hundreds of kilometres enables extensive missions to take place beneath sea ice and floating ice shelves. Autosub2 is a 3600 kg, 6.7 m long AUV, with a 1600 m operating depth and range of 400 km, based on the earlier Autosub1 which had a 500 rn depth limit. A single direct-drive d.c. motor and five-bladed propeller produce speeds of 1-2 m s(-1). Rear-mounted rudder and stern-plane control yaw, pitch and depth. The vehicle has three sections. The front and rear sections are free-flooding, built around aluminium extrusion space-frames covered with glass-fibre reinforced plastic panels. The central section has a set of carbon-fibre reinforced plastic pressure vessels. Four tubes contain batteries powering the vehicle. The other three house vehicle-control systems and sensors. The rear section houses subsystems for navigation, control actuation and propulsion and scientific sensors (e.g. digital camera, upward-looking 300 kHz acoustic Doppler current profiler, 200 kHz multibeam receiver). The front section contains forward-looking collision sensor, emergency abort, the homing systems, Argos satellite data and location transmitters and flashing lights for relocation as well as science sensors (e.g. twin conductivity-temperature-depth instruments, multibeam transmitter, sub-bottom profiler, AquaLab water sampler). Payload restrictions mean that a subset of scientific instruments is actually in place on any given dive. The scientific instruments carried on Autosub are described and examples of observational data collected from each sensor in Arctic or Antarctic waters are given (e.g. of roughness at the underside of floating ice shelves and sea ice).

The cavities beneath Antarctic ice shelves are among the least studied regions of the World Ocean, yet they are sites of globally important water mass transformations. Here we report results from a mission beneath Fimbul Ice Shelf of an autonomous underwater vehicle. The data reveal a spatially complex oceanographic environment, an ice base with widely varying roughness, and a cavity periodically exposed to water with a temperature significantly above the surface freezing point. The results of this, the briefest of glimpses of conditions in this extraordinary environment, are already reforming our view of the topographic and oceanographic conditions beneath ice shelves, holding out great promises for future missions from similar platforms.