A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Ryder Glacier in northwest Greenland is shielded from warm Atlantic water by a bathymetric sill

  2020. Martin Jakobsson (et al.). Communications earth & environment 1 (1)

  Article

  The processes controlling advance and retreat of outlet glaciers in fjords draining the Greenland Ice Sheet remain poorly known, undermining assessments of their dynamics and associated sea-level rise in a warming climate. Mass loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet has increased six-fold over the last four decades, with discharge and melt from outlet glaciers comprising key components of this loss. Here we acquired oceanographic data and multibeam bathymetry in the previously uncharted Sherard Osborn Fjord in northwest Greenland where Ryder Glacier drains into the Arctic Ocean. Our data show that warmer subsurface water of Atlantic origin enters the fjord, but Ryder Glacier's floating tongue at its present location is partly protected from the inflow by a bathymetric sill located in the innermost fjord. This reduces under-ice melting of the glacier, providing insight into Ryder Glacier's dynamics and its vulnerability to inflow of Atlantic warmer water. A bathymetric sill in Sherard Osborn Fjord, northwest Greenland shields Ryder Glacier from melting by warm Atlantic water found at the bottom of the fjord, according to high-resolution bathymetric mapping and oceanographic data.

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• The climate sensitivity of northern Greenland fjords is amplified through sea-ice damming

  2021. Christian Stranne (et al.). Communications Earth & Environment 2 (1)

  Article

  Record-high air temperatures were observed over Greenland in the summer of 2019 and melting of the northern Greenland Ice Sheet was particularly extensive. Here we show, through direct measurements, that near surface ocean temperatures in Sherard Osborn Fjord, northern Greenland, reached 4 °C in August 2019, while in the neighboring Petermann Fjord, they never exceeded 0 °C. We show that this disparity in temperature between the two fjords occurred because thick multi-year sea ice at the entrance of Sherard Osborn Fjord trapped the surface waters inside the fjord, which led to the formation of a warm and fresh surface layer. These results suggest that the presence of multi-year sea ice increases the sensitivity of Greenland fjords abutting the Arctic Ocean to climate warming, with potential consequences for the long-term stability of the northern sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

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• Physical Disturbance by Bottom Trawling Suspends Particulate Matter and Alters Biogeochemical Processes on and Near the Seafloor

  2021. Clare Bradshaw (et al.). Frontiers in Marine Science 8

  Article

  Bottom trawling is known to affect benthic faunal communities but its effects on sediment suspension and seabed biogeochemistry are less well described. In addition, few studies have been carried out in the Baltic Sea, despite decades of trawling in this unique brackish environment and the frequent occurrence of trawling in areas where hypoxia and low and variable salinity already act as ecosystem stressors. We measured the physical and biogeochemical impacts of an otter trawl on a muddy Baltic seabed. Multibeam bathymetry revealed a 36 m-wide trawl track, comprising parallel furrows and sediment piles caused by the trawl doors and shallower grooves from the groundgear, that displaced 1,000 m³ (500 t) sediment and suspended 9.5 t sediment per km of track. The trawl doors had less effect than the rest of the gear in terms of total sediment mass but per m² the doors had 5× the displacement and 2× the suspension effect, due to their greater penetration and hydrodynamic drag. The suspended sediment spread >1 km away over the following 3–4 days, creating a 5–10 m thick layer of turbid bottom water. Turbidity reached 4.3 NTU (7 mgDW L^–1), 550 m from the track, 20 h post-trawling. Particulate Al, Ti, Fe, P, and Mn were correlated with the spatio-temporal pattern of suspension. There was a pulse of dissolved N, P, and Mn to a height of 10 m above the seabed within a few hundred meters of the track, 2 h post-trawling. Dissolved methane concentrations were elevated in the water for at least 20 h. Sediment biogeochemistry in the door track was still perturbed after 48 h, with a decreased oxygen penetration depth and nutrient and oxygen fluxes across the sediment-water interface. These results clearly show the physical effects of bottom trawling, both on seabed topography (on the scale of km and years) and on sediment and particle suspension (on the scale of km and days-weeks). Alterations to biogeochemical processes suggest that, where bottom trawling is frequent, sediment biogeochemistry may not have time to recover between disturbance events and elevated turbidity may persist, even outside the trawled area.

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• Potential and Limitations of a Commercial Broadband Echo Sounder for Remote Observations of Turbulent Mixing

  2022. Julia Muchowski (et al.). Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 39 (12), 1985-2003

  Article

  Stratified oceanic turbulence is strongly intermittent in time and space, and therefore generally underresolved by currently available in situ observational approaches. A promising tool to at least partly overcome this constraint are broadband acoustic observations of turbulent microstructure that have the potential to provide mixing parameters at orders of magnitude higher resolution compared to conventional approaches. Here, we discuss the applicability, limitations, and measurement uncertainties of this approach for some prototypical turbulent flows (stratified shear layers, turbulent flow across a sill), based on a comparison of broadband acoustic observations and data from a free-falling turbulence microstructure profiler. We find that broadband acoustics are able to provide a quantitative description of turbulence energy dissipation in stratified shear layers (correlation coefficient r = 0.84) if the stratification parameters required by the method are carefully preprocessed. Essential components of our suggested preprocessing algorithm are 1) a vertical low-pass filtering of temperature and salinity profiles at a scale slightly larger than the Ozmidov length scale of turbulence and 2) an automated elimination of weakly stratified layers according to a gradient threshold criterion. We also show that in weakly stratified conditions, the acoustic approach may yield acceptable results if representative averaged vertical temperature and salinity gradients rather than local gradients are used. Our findings provide a step toward routine turbulence measurements in the upper ocean from moving vessels by combining broadband acoustics with in situ CTD profiles.  

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• Ecosystem mapping in the Central Arctic Ocean (CAO) during the SAS-Oden expedition: Final report

  2022. Pauline Snoeijs-Leijonmalm (et al.).

  Report

  As a result of global warming, the marine ecosystem around the North Pole, the Central Arctic Ocean (CAO), is in fast transition from a permanently to a seasonally ice-covered ocean. The sea-ice loss is expected to enable summer access to the CAO for non-icebreaking ships, including fishery vessels, in the near future. However, the lack of knowledge on the CAO ecosystem impedes any assessment of the sustainability of potential future fisheries in the CAO. Taking a precautionary approach, the EU and nine countries in October 2018 signed the Agreement to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean. This agreement entered into force in June 2021 and a.o. requires the establishment of a joint scientific program to improve the understanding of the CAO ecosystem, including mapping and monitoring. To reduce the existing lack of knowledge, 12 scientists from the EFICA Consortium participated, together with 26 other on-board scientists, in sampling and data collection of ecosystem data during the Swedish SAS-Oden expedition in summer 2021. This report describes the field work performed by the EFICA scientists using water-column acoustics, deep-sea optical observations, and fish, zooplankton, sediment otolith and eDNA sampling for targeting fish, zooplankton and mammals. Further ecosystem data (physical, chemical and biological) were collected by the EFICA scientists in collaboration with other scientists on-board. Together with this report, a metadata database containing lists of all collected samples and data that are relevant for future fish-stock modelling and assessment studies was delivered to the European Commission.

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• Uncovering Ocean Mixing near Rough Bathymetry: Using Broadband Acoustics

  2023. Julia C. Muchowski.

  Thesis (Doc)

  Ocean mixing related to rough bathymetry is highly dynamic and exhibits large spatial and temporal variability. Therefore, established in-situ methods as well as numerical models often lack the resolution to capture this type of mixing. In this thesis, acoustics are used to observe, map and quantify stratified mixing at unprecedented resolution. Acoustic broadband data from a Simrad EK80 and co-located microstructure data from a Sea & Sun Technology MicroStructure profiler (MSS) were collected during two cruises on R/V Electra in Feb-March 2019 and 2020 in the Southern Quark region in the northern Åland Sea, Baltic Sea. In the first manuscript (M1), an existing acoustic model to quantify turbulent mixing from acoustic backscatter is revisited and applied to the co-located data sets. Possibilities and limitations of applying the acoustic model are investigated in detail. In a following case study (M2), the acoustic model is applied to a subset of the data where rough bathymetry reaches into stratified flow and highly increases mixing across the halocline. The dominant mixing mechanism is revealed to be wake vortices and their impact is estimated using a diffusion model. The final case study (M3) emphasizes the impact of mixing in the Southern Quark on exchange processes between the distinctly different Northern Baltic Proper and the Bothnian Sea. The acoustic observations uncover the detailed structure (M1-M3) and temporal development (M3) of turbulent diapycnal mixing in heterogeneous flow over rough bathymetry. This thesis is a step towards increased applicability and automatized analysis of acoustic broadband data for identifying and quantifying turbulent diapycnal mixing.

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• Diapycnal Mixing Induced by Rough Small-Scale Bathymetry

  2023. Julia Muchowski (et al.). Geophysical Research Letters 50 (13)

  Article

  Diapycnal mixing impacts vertical transport rates of salt, heat, and other dissolved substances, essential for the overturning circulation and ecosystem functioning in marine systems. While most studies have focused on mixing induced by individual obstacles in tidal flows, we investigate the net effect of non-tidal flow over multiple small-scale (<1 km) bathymetric features penetrating a strongly-stratified density interface in a coastal region. We combine high-resolution broadband acoustic observations of turbulence microstructure with traditional shear microstructure profiling, to resolve the variability and intermittency of stratified turbulence related to the rough bathymetry. Scale analysis and acoustic imaging suggest that underlying mixing mechanisms are related to topographic wake eddies and breaking internal waves. Depth averaged dissipation rates (1.1 × 10⁻⁷ Wkg⁻¹) and turbulent vertical diffusivities (7 × 10⁻⁴ m²s⁻¹) in the halocline exceed reference values by two orders of magnitude. Our study emphasizes the importance of rough small-scale bathymetric features for the vertical transport of salt in coastal areas.

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Show all publications by Julia Christin Muchowski at Stockholm University