Supplementary material to "Satellite ice extent, sea surface temperature, and atmospheric methane trends in the Barents and Kara seas"

Abstract

Supplementary Material S1. Detailed Currents and Bathymetry Figure S1. Bathymetry and currents around Svalbard. Bathymetry from Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (2016). Currents adapted from Stiansen et al. (2009). Dashed black line shows the Barents Front location, Dashed currents are submerged; blue-cold, yellow-warm. Currents and flows around Svalbard Archipelago are complex (Supp. Fig. S1), dominated by the West Spitsbergen Current (WSC), which is the northerly fork of the Norwegian Atlantic Current (NAC), and flows northwards off the west coast of Spitsbergen. The cold, Percy Current (PC) flows southwest off the eastern shores of the Svalbard Archipelago. The cold East Spitsbergen Current (ESC) flows through the Hinlopen Strait and then joins the PC to flow around the south cape of Spitsbergen as the Sørkapp Current (SC), following the coast northwards as the Spitsbergen Coastal Current (SCC) (Svendsen et al., 2002). The cold SCC flows inshore of the WSC, and flows up Svalbard's western coast, inshore and shallower than the warm, Atlantic WSC. The interface between these two currents off west Spitsbergen forms a part of the Barents Front. Thus, coastal waters offshore West Spitsbergen are of Arctic Ocean origin, whereas further offshore lies Barents Sea water (origin Atlantic Ocean). The location of the Barents Sea Polar Front (Oziel et al., 2016) is semi-permanent and controlled by seabed topography (Fig. S1), particularly the Svalbard Bank and Grand Bank and the trough to the southwest of Svalbard.