Hydrography and circulation of the West Antarctic Peninsula Continental Shelf

Abstract

The water mass structure and circulation of the continental shelf waters west of the Antarctic Peninsula are described from hydrographic observations made in March–May 1993. The observations cover an area that extends 900 km alongshore and 200 km offshore and represent the most extensive hydrographic data set currently available for this region. Waters above 100–150 m are composed of Antarctic Surface Water and its end member Winter Water. Below the permanent pycnocline is a modified version of Circumpolar Deep Water, which is a cooled and freshened version of Upper Circumpolar Deep Water. The distinctive signature of cold and salty water from the Bransfield Strait is found at some inshore locations, but there is little indication of significant exchange between Bransfield Strait and the west Antarctic Peninsula shelf. Dynamic topography at 200 m relative to 400 m indicates that the baroclinic circulation on the shelf is composed of a large, weak, cyclonic gyre, with sub-gyres at the northeastern and southwestern ends of the shelf. The total transport of the shelf gyre is 0.15 Sv, with geostrophic currents of order 0.01 m s -1. A simple model that balances across-shelf diffusion of heat and salt from offshore Upper Circumpolar Deep Water with vertical diffusion of heat and salt across the permanent pycnocline into Winter Water is used to explain the formation of the modified Circumpolar Deep Water that is found on the shelf. Model results show that the observed thermohaline distributions across the shelf can be maintained with a coefficient of vertical diffusion of 10 -4 m 2 s -1 and horizontal diffusion coefficients for heat and salt of 200 and 1200 m 2 s -1, respectively. When the effects of double diffusion are included in the model, the required horizontal diffusion coefficients for heat and salt are 200 and 400 m 2 s -1, respectively.