Eddy Heat Transport in the Marginal Ice Zone of the Northern Greenland Sea

The marginal ice zone, the dynamics of which largely governs the sea ice extent in polar regions, is an area of intense interaction between the ice cover, ocean and atmosphere. Provided high background water temperature gradients, mesoscale eddies can strongly affect the position of the ice edge via intense horizontal mixing of warm and cold waters. However, the extent of eddy influence on the ice edge remains unclear. In this study, we investigate synoptic dynamics of the marginal ice zone in the Fram Strait and northern Greenland Sea, an area, where cold Polar Water and sea ice from the Arctic interact with the warm Recirculating Atlantic Water. The results of a high-resolution FESOM model (1 × 1 km), showed that the heat translation by mesoscale eddies towards the ice edge has the same order of magnitude as the sea ice convergence by the mean current and, during the bulk of the year, significantly exceeds the possible ice-atmosphere heat exchange. Large anticyclonic eddies provided the dominant contribution in the eddy horizontal heat translation towards the ice edge.