Flow Constraints on Pathways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago

Figures & data

Fig. 1 The name of the islands, straits and locations in the model domain, AG: Amundsen Gulf, B: Bellot Strait, D: Dolphin and Union Strait, BM: Byam Martin Channel, BaS: Barrow Strait, FH: Fury and Hecla Strait, FS: Franklin Strait, GB: Gulf of Boothia, LS: Lancaster Sound, JS: Jones Sound, MaS: Mackenzie Shelf, MC: M'Clintock Channel, MS: McClure Strait, NS: Nares Strait, Pe: Peel Sound, PS: Penny Strait, VMS: Viscount Melville Sound, VS: Victoria Strait, C: Cape Bathurst, CR: Clyde River, De: Devon Island, CI: Cornwallis Island, KW: King William Island, R: Resolute Bay, PP: Prince Patrick Island, PWI: Prince of Wales Island. PRI: Prince Regent Inlet, QEI: Queen Elizabeth Islands, SI: Somerset Island, The thick red line shows the location of a section in Fig. 8. MS, VMS, BaS, and LS constitute Parry Channel.

Fig. 2 (a) The CAA configuration and (b) The pan-Arctic configuration with the background bathymetry (m).

Fig. 3 Bathymetry (m) in the (a) CAA control experiment, (b) the CAA-MC experiment, (c) the CAA-FS experiment and (d) the CAA-BS experiment.

Table 1. Details of the model configurations and experiments used in the paper.

Configurations	CAA	Pan-Artic
Ocean time steps(s)	480	1800
Ice thermodynamic time step(s)	2400	1800
EVP subcycling time steps(s)	5	1
Air-Ice drag coefficient	0.00163	0.00163
Ice-Ocean drag coefficient	0.005	0.005
Ice strength parameter (N m^–2)	27500	23000
Minimum ice thickness (m)	0.05	0.05

Fig. 4 Downwelling shortwave radiation (W m⁻²) in June (a) from the Arctic Global Radiation dataset, (b) from the Large and Yeager (2004) dataset. (c) The difference between the AGR dataset and the Large and Yeager (2004) dataset for June.

Table 2. List of the six numerical experiments.

	Name of run	Domain	SSS restoring
1	CAA control	CAA real	yes
2	Pan-Arctic	Pan-Arctic	no
3	CAA-NS	CAA real	no
4	CAA-MC	CAA + flat MC	no
5	CAA-FS	CAA + flat FS	no
6	CAA-BS	CAA + flat BS	no

Fig. 5 (a) Mean sea-ice concentration in July for the period 1984–2004 from SSM/I data. (b) Simulated mean sea-ice concentration in July and (c) mean sea-ice thickness (m) in April averaged over years 6–8 in the CAA control experiment.

Table 3. Observed ice thickness and modelled ice thickness (m).

Location	Observation	CAA control experiment
Mackenzie Shelf (April)	2 (Melling et al., 2005)	2.5
Queen Elizabeth Islands region (March–May)	3.4 (1.6–5.5) (Melling, 2002)	2.5–4.5
M'Clure Strait (February)	4.2 (McLaren et al., 1984)	3
Northern Peel Sound (April)	1.9 (Prinsenberg and Bennett, 1989)	2
Clyde River (April)	1.5 ± 0.3 (Tang et al., 2004)	1.5
Lincoln Sea (May)	4.7 ± 2.2 (2004); 5.2 ± 2.4 (2005) (Haas et al., 2006)	4.5

Fig. 6 (a) The mean currents in the CAA averaged over the top 300 m and over years 6–8 in the CAA control experiment, with one-fifth of the horizontal grid points shown. An enlargement of the inset box is shown in Fig. 7. (b) as in (a) but for the pan-Arctic experiment averaged over years 16–18, with one-third of the horizontal grid points shown.

Fig. 7 Enlargement of the inset area in Fig. 6a showing the currents. The background field is log₁₀(f/h). The red line shows the position of line A, along which the momentum balance is averaged in Fig. 10.

Fig. 8 The mean cross-section current speed (cm s⁻¹) in Barrow Strait (section shown in Fig. 1) in April averaged over years 6–8 in the CAA control experiment.

Fig. 9 (a) The mean Ertel's potential vorticity and currents averaged over the top 300 m in eastern Lancaster Sound. (b) The cross-section current speed (cm s⁻¹) at 81.4°W with the location of the section shown by the thick bold line in panel (c). (c) Surface salinity in eastern Lancaster Sound. (d) The vertical velocity (10⁻⁵ m s⁻¹) (contours) over the top 140 m overlying Ertel's potential vorticity at 81.4°W. Downward velocity is negative. The units for Ertel's potential vorticity are 10⁻¹⁰ m⁻¹ s⁻¹. All values are averaged over years 16–18 in the pan-Arctic experiment.

Fig. 10 Momentum balance averaged over the top 50 m along line A, shown in Fig. 7. Ageo represents ageostrophic acceleration. The values have been multiplied by 10⁷.

Fig. 11 (a) The CAA control experiment ice concentration (color contours) and ice motion vectors (black arrows) and wind vectors (magenta arrows) in (a) August and (b) September.

Large, W. and S. Yeager. 2004. Diurnal to decadal global forcing for ocean and sea-ice models: The data sets and flux climatologies. NCAR, NCAR technical note: NCAR/TN-460+ STR.

 Google Scholar

Melling , H. , Riedel , D. A. and Gedalof , Z. 2005 . Trends in the draft and extent of seasonal pack ice, Canadian Beaufort Sea . Geophys. Res. Lett. , 32 : L24501 doi:10.1029/2005GL024483

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Melling , H. 2002 . Sea ice of the northern Canadian Arctic Archipelago . J. Geophys. Res. , 107 3181, doi:10.1029/2001JC001102

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

McLaren , A. , Wadhams , P. and Weintraub , R. 1984 . The sea ice topography of M'Clure Strait in winter and summer of 1960 from submarine profiles . Arctic , 37 : 110 – 120 .

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Prinsenberg , S. J. and Bennett , E. 1989 . Transport between Peel Sound and Barrow Strait in the Canadian Arctic . Cont. Shelf Res. , 9 : 427 – 444 . doi:10.1016/0278-4343(89) 90008-3

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Tang , C. C. , Ross , C. K. , Yao , T. , Petrie , B. , DeTracey , B. M. and Dunlap , E. 2004 . The circulation, water masses and sea-ice of Baffin Bay . Prog. Oceanogr. , 63 : 183 – 228 . doi:10.1016/j.pocean.2004.09.005

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Haas , C. , Hendricks , S. and Doble , M. 2006 . Comparison of the sea-ice thickness distribution in the Lincoln Sea and adjacent Arctic Ocean in 2004 and 2005 . Ann. Glaciol. , 44 : 247 – 252 .

 Google Scholar