The Pacific-Atlantic Front in the East Siberian Sea of the Arctic Ocean

Abstract

It is the purpose of this paper to introduce the reader to the various water masses that are found in the Arctic Ocean and describe how fronts, separating these water masses, are identified through the application of physical and biogeochemical measurements. Variations in the positions/alignments of these fronts help to describe changes in circulation patterns that impact local physical, chemical, and biological systems. In this chapter, the distributions of various physical and geochemical parameters representing summer conditions in the Arctic during 2015, a year of particularly good spatial coverage in terms of scientific observations, will be presented and analyzed with a focus on identifying the front separating Atlantic and Pacific halocline waters in the East Siberian Sea by qualitative means.