Beaufort Gyre

A reason for the existence of this link was proposed: "...delayed winter ice formation allows for more efficient coupling between the ocean and wind forcing."

Although biased toward the Northern Hemisphere summer months, observations from submarines, ships, and stations on drifting ice suggest that the gyre has been expanding over the past two decades.

Model results show that Ekman transport plays an integral role in the variability of freshwater in the gyre, and thus in the Arctic Ocean.

If, as is speculated, as the Arctic Ocean becomes a heat collector resulting in a low pressure, counter clockwise rotating system, the Beaufort Gyre can be expected to follow suit and send the fresher water outward to be captured by the transpolar current.

The wind stress curl used by Giles et al. (2012) is from the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis data at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, Earth System Research Laboratory, Physical Sciences Division (NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD) in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

[6] The Beaufort Gyre has formed a dome of freshwater that has expanded vertically by about 15 centimetres (5.9 in) since 2002; by 2011 it had swelled to about 8,000 cubic kilometres (1,900 cu mi) in volume.

[7] The clockwise circulation of the Beaufort Gyre is induced by the wind patterns associated with the permanent anticyclonic high pressure system over the western part of the Arctic.