Arctic Freshwater ‘Lake’

Arctic Freshwater ‘Lake’

By Dr Arvind Kumar

The findings are part of Project Clamer is a collaboration of 17 institutes in 10 European countries that is synthesising research from nearly 300 EU-funded projects over the past 13 years that concern climate change and Europe's waters, and the Baltic and Black Seas. The findings of a research study, as part of Project Clamer, were published as a newsitem in London’s The Guardian, on 7 April this year. According to this report, a vast expanse of freshwater in the midst of the Arctic Ocean is set to wreak unpredictable changes on the climate in Europe and North America, new scientific analysis has shown. It further observes that the water — comprising meltwater from the ice cap and run off from rivers — is at least twice the volume of Lake Victoria in Africa, and is continuing to grow. At some point huge quantities of this water are likely to flush out of the Arctic Ocean and into the Atlantic, which could have significant impacts on the climate.

The newsreport cites Benjamin Rabe of the Alfred Wengener Institute as saying: “This could have an influence on ocean circulation. It could have an influence on the Gulf Stream. At present, the freshwater acts as a ‘lid’, preventing the warmer salty water below from meeting the ice, which would melt if the two get mixed.” But while it is currently stable, this situation is likely to change as atmospheric circulation patterns shift, and as greater quantities of meltwater spill into the “lake”. There were signs of an atmospheric change in 2009 that could have precipitated such an outflow, but that episode did not last.