The characterization and impact of extreme winds in Nares Strait

Extreme winds in the Arctic can affect sea ice motion, ocean convection, maritime and aviation activity, and the formation of polynyas. This work investigates a severe wind event that destroyed an ice camp established along Nares Strait in April 2005. We aim to quantify its exceptionality. Nares Strait is a long, narrow body of water between Ellesmere Island (Nunavut, Canada) and northwestern Greenland. There are steep mountains on both sides, significantly impacting meteorological phenomena and making it difficult to model weather events in the area accurately. Therefore, we used the Copernicus Arctic Regional Re-analysis (CARRA) data with 2.5-km horizontal resolution, covering the period 1991-2022, to characterize the wind climate of the region. Our results indicate that the surface winds during the event were associated with a low-level jet and were extreme at certain places and times during the April 2005 storm. The reanalysis generally agrees with the in-situ description of the event, although some of the highest observed wind speeds were not captured in the dataset. There is evidence that Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability may have occurred during the event, which could have contributed to the elevated surface wind speeds. This result has implications for future research expeditions and scientific understanding of the Arctic Climate System, as the wind in Nares Strait controls the flow of most old, thick sea ice that exits the Arctic.