Evidence of local and regional freshening of Northeast Greenland coastal waters

The supply of freshwater to fjord systems in Greenland is increasing as a result of climate change-induced acceleration in ice sheet melt. However, insight into the marine implications of the melt water is impaired by lack of observations demonstrating the fate of freshwater along the Greenland coast and providing evaluation basis for ocean models. Here we present 13 years of summer measurements along a 120 km transect in Young Sound, Northeast Greenland and show that sub-surface coastal waters are decreasing in salinity with an average rate of 0.12 ± 0.05 per year. This is the first observational evidence of a significant freshening on decadal scale of the waters surrounding the ice sheet and comes from a region where ice sheet melt has been less significant. It implies that ice sheet dynamics in Northeast Greenland could be of key importance as freshwater is retained in southward flowing coastal currents thus reducing density of water masses influencing major deep water formation areas in the Subarctic Atlantic Ocean. Ultimately, the observed freshening could have implications for the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation

Seasonal carbon cycling in a Greenlandic fjord: an integrated pelagic and benthic study

Climate change is expected to have a pronounced effect on biogeochemical cycling in Arctic fjords, but current insight on the biogeochemical functioning of these systems is limited. Here, we present seasonal data on primary production, export of particulate organic carbon (POC), and the coupling to benthic biogeochemistry in Kobbefjord (SW Greenland). Primary production and associated POC export from the photic zone showed marked seasonality, with annual integrated values of 7.2 and 19.9 mol C m-2 yr-1, respectively. This discrepancy, the isotopic signature, and C:N ratio of the sedimentating material suggested substantial import of marine POC from outside the fjord. At least 52% of the POC export reached the sediment, but the seasonality in pelagic productivity was not reflected in the sediment biogeochemistry, showing only moderate variation. Benthic mineralization and burial of organic carbon amounted to 3.2 and 5.3 mol C m-2 yr-1, respectively. Sulfate reduction was the most prominent mineralization pathway, accounting for 69% of the benthic mineralization, while denitrification accounted for 2%. Overall, the carbon mineralization and burial in Kobbefjord were significantly higher than previously observed in other more northerly Arctic fjords. Data compilation from Arctic fjords suggests proportional increases in surface production, POC export, benthic mineralization and burial of organic material with increasing duration of the ice-free period. Thus, the projected decline in ice coverage in higher Arctic Greenlandic fjords will, as a first approximation, entail proportional increases in productivity, mineralization, and burial of organic carbon in the fjords, which will thus become similar to present-day southerly systems