Eurasian Arctic shelf hydrography: exchange and residence time of southern Laptev Sea waters

The hydrography of the Laptev Sea is significantly influenced by river water and sea-ice processes, which are highly variable over the annual cycle. Despite of an estuarine structure the inner and outer shelf regions are decoupled at times as documented by the stability of a warm intermediate layer formed during summer below the Lena River plume. We demonstrate that a remnant of this warm layer is preserved below the fast ice until the end of winter, while only slightly farther to the north, offshore of the land fast ice in the polynya region, the pycnocline is eroded and no signature of this layer is found. The warm intermediate layer (WIL) formed during summer can be used as tracer for Laptev Sea shelf waters throughout the winter. There by, residence times of southern Laptev Sea waters can be estimated to be at least from summer to the end of winter/spring of the following year. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved