Arctic tidal current atlas
Till M. Baumann, Igor V. Polyakov, Laurie Padman, Seth L. Danielson, Ilker Fer, Markus Janout, William J. Williams, Andrey V. Pnyushkov
Abstract
Tidal and wind-driven near-inertial currents play a vital role in the changing Arctic climate and the marine ecosystems. We compiled 429 available moored current observations taken over the last two decades throughout the Arctic to assemble a pan-Arctic atlas of tidal band currents. The atlas contains different tidal current products designed for the analysis of tidal parameters from monthly to inter-annual time scales. On shorter time scales, wind-driven inertial currents cannot be analytically separated from semidiurnal tidal constituents. Thus, we include 10-30 h band-pass filtered currents, which include all semidiurnal and diurnal tidal constituents as well as wind-driven inertial currents for the analysis of high-frequency variability of ocean dynamics. This allows for a wide range of possible uses, including local case studies of baroclinic tidal currents, assessment of long-term trends in tidal band kinetic energy and Arctic-wide validation of ocean circulation models. This atlas may also be a valuable tool for resource management and industrial applications such as fisheries, navigation and offshore construction.