14 DAY TRIAL // The phenomenon of warming water in the Arctic Area seems to extend to the Western Greenland toward Alaska and the Canadian Basin, as discovered a team of University of Alaska Fairbanks International Arctic Research Center.
Researchers made this observation this fall during the Nansen and Amundsen Basins Observational Systems program.
Data offered by the NABOS program and other international programs has shown that during the last 10 years, water temperature in the Arctic Ocean has risen.
And this fall's data show unprecedented warmth in some areas.
"The large area of the Arctic Ocean promises to become much warmer," said Igor Polyakov, NABOS principal investigator and a research professor at IARC.
Scientists used observational moorings (instrument-bearing buoys that are anchored to the ocean floor and float below the surface of the ocean) to read temperatures at different depths.
A surge of warm water was detected at 150 to 800 meters in February of 2004 on the continental slope of the Laptev Sea, in Northern Siberia.
"What we found this year was one of our eastern moorings also showed a warming signal" Polyakov said.
"That finding indicates that the warm water is moving further and further into the Arctic," he said," which could increase the overall temperature of the Arctic Ocean."
Observations from the NABOS project suggest that the Arctic Ocean is moving toward a warmer state, and this could have a global impact on climate.
Water temperature in the Arctic area may affect the amount of Arctic ice.
Arctic sea ice plays a major role in the global climate, as ice reflects more of the sun's heat than open water, and its melting will affect Earth's climate.