A Switch in Thermal and Haline Contributions to Stratification in the Greenland Sea During the Last Four Decades

Stratification and its thermal and haline contributions are important ocean properties of fundamental climatic influence. Upper-ocean stratification shapes marine ecosystems by regulating nutrient availability and deep-ocean stratification is important for carbon sequestration and ventilating the ocean interior. Here, we first assess the applicability of an ocean reanalysis product in representing stratification in the Nordic Seas and East Greenland Shelf. While the reanalysis performs well in most interior basins, it exhibits significant shortcomings on the East Greenland shelf, raising concerns about the reanalysis product in these areas. We then examine the development in the thermal and haline contributions to summer upper- (100 m) and winter intermediate- (1000 m) ocean stratification in the Greenland Sea from 1980 to 2020. We find that there has been a transition in the controls of winter stratification in the upper 1000 m of the Greenland Sea. The transition was associated with a westward migration of the boundary between salinity- and temperature-stratified waters and eventual switch from haline to thermal control of winter stratification. With that follows a change in the type of forcing that can lead to convection: The Greenland Sea is now less dependent on eroding salinity gradients but rather depends on cooling to overcome stratification. There has been a similar switch in summer stratification in the upper-ocean of the Greenland Sea where surface waters shifted from variable stratification, alternating between salinity and temperature dominance, to a stable temperature-stratified regime. This switch coincided with declining sea-ice concentrations related to the disappearance of the Odden ice tongue after 1997. The high sea-ice conditions previously characteristic of the Greenland Sea are now rare suggesting the transition will persist with potential implications for marine ecology and local sea-ice formation. Our findings reveal differences in how thermal and haline stratification has developed over the last 40 years, which may help explain or predict plankton production and carbon uptake and export.