Abstract

Fresh melt water from sea ice and ice shelf is not only essential to the ocean hydrography but the mesoscale dynamics due to the induced baroclinicity. Warm intrusions from the Bering Strait transport heat and nutrients via baroclinic eddies vertically beneath the sea ice and laterally across structural fronts near the ice edge in the eastern Chukchi Sea. Numerical models using the Regional Ocean Model System (ROMS) are integrated to systematically investigate the importance of the baroclinic eddy field and the factors that affect its dynamics, specifically on the stratifications determined by the fresh water volume. Model results show a noticeable effect of strong wind events on ice edge displacement. The advection of ice away from or toward the inflow changes the ice melt rate and the salinity of the melt water plume, both are the factors that important to the heat transported by baroclinic instability and further feedback to the ice melt rate. Similar mechanisms can be found elsewhere around the ice fronts of sea ice and ice shelves,it is worth studying with more systematically models of the other regional oceans to explore the coincidences and dissimilarities.