Oceanographic observations in the Nordic Sea and Fram Strait in 2016 under the IO PAN long-term monitoring program AREX

Since 1987 annual summer cruises to the Nordic Seas and Fram Strait have been conducted by the 10 PAN research vessel Oceania under the long-term monitoring program AREX. Here we present a short description of measurements and preliminary results obtained during the open ocean part of the AREX 2016 cruise. Spatial distributions of Atlantic water temperature and salinity in 2016 are similar to their long-term mean fields except for warmer recirculation of Atlantic water in the northern Fram Strait. The longest observation record from the section N along 76 degrees 30'N reveals a steady increase of Atlantic water salinity, while temperature trend depends strongly on parametrization used to define the Atlantic water layer. However spatially averaged temperature at different depths indicate an increase of Atlantic water temperature in the whole layer from the surface down to 1000 m. (C) 2017 Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier Sp. z o.o.