po polsku
Project overview
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The main objective of the DWINS project is to investigate the temporal and spatial variability of the physical properties of deep and intermediate water in the Nordic Seas during the period 1997-2018. During project implementation, the special attention will be paid to quantification of the temporal and spatial changes in temperature, salinity and heat content in the studied water masses and determining the drivers of these changes.
The region of the Nordic Seas (the Greenland, Norwegian, and Iceland seas) and the European Arctic has been studied by the Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences (IOPAN) since the early 90's. The previous work was focused mainly on warm, and salty waters of the Atlantic origin, their importance for climate and the impact on the sea ice. During more than 30 years of regular measurements IOPAN collected the unique set of oceanographic data. In the recent years increasing attention of oceanographers and climatologists is focused on the oceans warming and the importance of the ocean as a buffer, which accumulates excess energy that reaches the Earth as a result of the greenhouse effect. The recent studies show that heat accumulates not only the surface layer of the ocean, but also intermediate and deep water. The warming of the ocean layer between 700 and 2000 m in the years from 1957 to 2009 resulted in about 30% of the total global growth of the heat content in the ocean (from 0 to 2000 m). According to some estimates, from 2003 to 2010 the heat content in the ocean layer from 0 to 700 m increased slower as compared to the previous decade, and the absorption of heat at depths between 700 and 2000 m did not weaken during this period. This could mean that the deeper layers of the ocean contribute to weakening of the surface layer warming by absorbing the excess heat accumulated in it. |
