WP 3: Process experiments:

• Task 3.1: Monitoring upstream conditions: strength and along-path evolution of mass, salt and heat fluxes, and water masses of the Norwegian Atlantic Current

  Main objective: Quantify and understand the mass, heat and salt fluxes, and the processes modifying the Atlantic Water as flowing through the Norwegian Sea toward the Arctic.

• Task 3.2: Towards a modern Weather Station Mike

  Main objective: To investigate the feasibility of using autonomous instrumentation for obtaining oceanographic information at Station Mike.

• Task 3.3: Bifurcation of the Norwegian Atlantic Current into a Barents Sea and a Fram Strait path

  Main objective The overall objective of this task is to improve the understanding of the mechanisms governing the bifurcation of the NwAC into the Barents Sea and to the West Spitzbergen Current (WSC) and use this as basis for interpretation of observed variations in the Arctic.

• Task 3.4: The buoyancy budget of the Arctic and Subarctic Seas

  Main objective: To improve the understanding of what sets the density field of the Arctic and Subarctic Seas with special emphasis on the role of mesoscale eddies and mean advection.

• Task 3.5: Carbon Cycling in the Arctic Ocean outflow

  Main objective: To investigate carbon cycling and lower trophic level ecosystem functions on the East Greenland shelf to evaluate the physical forcing and sensitivity to climate change for the fate of biogenic matter.

• Task 3.6: Sea ice feedback mechanisms

  Main objective: Combine measurements and simplified model concepts to investigate processes important for the sea ice albedo feedback loop, and improve their representation in general circulation models.

• Task 3.7: Surface radiative fluxes

  The EUMETSAT Ocean and Sea Ice SAF routinely produce surface radiative fluxes from remote sensing data (AVHRR on NOAA POES and EPS METOP in the future) at high latitudes (Godøy, 2005).

• Task 3.8: Monitoring downstream conditions: Fate of the freshwater

  Main objective: Estimate the fresh water transport on the shelf at 79 N and monitor the strength and along-path evolution of the ice, freshwater and volume transport of the East Greenland Current and the Transpolar Drift as it exits the Arctic.

• Task 3.9: Inverted estuarine circulation – driving the export of freshwater

  Main objective: To develop conceptual models related to the circulation driven by the Arctic freshwater.