In recent years, changes in the Arctic Ocean weather and ice regime have received widespread attention in terms of the possible link to Green House Gas (GHG) induced effects on the polar climate, and the implications of these changes on Arctic regional and oceanographic conditions. In this paper, we examine trends in summer meteorological and sea-ice conditions on the continental shelf and slope regions of the Canadian Beaufort Sea. The trend analysis was conducted using data collected over the past 30–50 years for selected measurement quantities. The interannual variability for many of these quantities is very large, which leads to statistical uncertainties in the statistical significance on the derived trend results. Air temperatures have clearly risen by 2–4°C according to the measurement location and month of the year. The trends in the monthly surface winds are relatively small in relation to the large degree of interannual variability. Computed trends in sea ice concentrations vary considerably with location. The trends in the fast ice concentrations (early summer and fall) are larger than those in the outer shelf and slope regions. In the latter areas, the regional winds are a major determinant in advection of sea ice, especially from the main Arctic pack ice to the north. The implications of the long-term trends on the regional oceanography are discussed.
In recent years, changes in the Arctic Ocean weather and ice regime have received much attention in the scientific literature as well as the popular press. There is widespread, and in some cases dramatic, evidence of overall warming of the full Arctic system (Richter-Menge et al., 2008) occurring in this first decade of the twenty-first century. In this paper, we examine the changes and trends observed over the past several years for meteorological and sea-ice conditions on the continental shelf and slope regions of the Canadian Beaufort Sea and compare the changes in this region to those observed and reported over the full Arctic Ocean system.
