Ocean Circulation Laboratory

Welcome on Ocean Circulation Laboratory website. The Laboratory is a part of the Physical Oceanography Department in the Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences

News

November 28-30th, 2011 - AWAKE WORKSHOP "Ocean influence on climate and cryosphere in the Arctic" will take place in the Institute, Sopot.

See Agenda

See more informations

September, 2011 - People from our group are taking part in the cruise aboard K/V Svalbard in the Greenland Sea, where recovery of our mooring system will take place. Mooring will be redeployed.

June-August, 2011 - R/V "Oceania" has been to the next Arctic cruise within IO PAS Arctic Experiment 2011. During this cruise hydrological profiles and currents (LADCP, ADCP) measurements on the Norwegian and Greenland Sea were performed as before. Furthermore towed CTD profiles at the West Spitsbergen shelf and fjords: Hornsund, Kongsfjord and others were done. See blog from that cruise

April-September, 2011 - The second field work in the Hornsund Fjord, Spitsbergen has been done in the frame of the AWAKE Project. Hydrology of the fjord was investigated, especially in the front of the Hans Glacier. Several moored instruments were redeployed in the fjord area in summer. Also meteorological data are continously collected in the Hans Bay, some glaciological work has been done in cooperation with group from the Silesia University, as well. See Project Website

Autumn 2010-Spring 2011 - Several Baltic cruises aboard R/V "Oceania" were done. Measurements along standard hydrological sections were performed.

People

Waldemar Walczowski, Assoc. Prof. - head of the laboratory -
Prof. Jan Piechura -
Krystyna Borkowska -
Agnieszka Beszczyńska-Möller, Ph.D. -
Robert Osiński, Ph.D. -
Piotr Wieczorek, M.Sc. -
Ilona Goszczko, M.Sc. -
Małgorzata Cisek, M.Sc. Eng. -
Daniel Rak, M.Sc. -
Agnieszka Promińska, M.Sc. -
Szymon Kosecki, M.Sc. Eng. -
Aleksander Borowski -

Our work

Baltic Sea:

the mesoscale phenomena (fronts, eddies, currents, etc.), their origin, development, characteristic features and interactions in the sea
the inflows of North Sea water into Baltic Sea, the transport conditions (with particular regard to the part of the Stolpe Sill and Stolpe Channel area), the influence on the termohaline fields structures in the deep basins of Baltic Sea
the mixing and transport of the inland origin waters into surrounding open sea area (on example the Pomeranian Bay and Gdansk Bay)
Saltwater Inflow, winter 2003 - see details

Baltic CTD data:

Baltic CTD data - see details

Arctic Seas:

West Spitsbergen Current:

structure, dynamics and variability
Atlantic Water layer conditions
volume transport, heat and salt content
geostrophic currents
interannual variability
warm impact to the Arctic Ocean through the Fram Strait

Norwegian and Greenland - Barents Sea Exchange Region:

hydrological regime and water volume transport
interannual changes of the physical fields
dense water formation

Arctic Front:

termohaline structure and dynamics
mesoscale features - meanders and eddies
cross frontal transport

All arctic measurements have been performed since 1987 under the IO PAS annual summer Arctic Experiments - AREX 1987-2011 on the R/V Oceania.

Cruises Reports:

AREX 2011 Cruise Report - see pdf file
AREX 2010 Cruise Report - see pdf file
AREX 2009 Cruise Report - see pdf file
AREX 2008 Cruise Report - see pdf file
AREX 2007 Cruise Report - see pdf file
AREX 2006 Cruise Report - see pdf file
AREX 2005 Cruise Report - see pdf file

International Projects

EUROFLEETS - Towards an Alliance of European Research Fleets - See details

AWAKE - Arctic Climate and Environment of the Nordic Seas and the Svalbard - Greenlad Area - See details

Alkekonge - Response of marine and terrestrial ecosystems to climate changes in Arctic - links between physical environment, biodiversity of zooplankton and seabird populations - See details

Arctic ROOS - Establishment of Arctic Regional Ocean Observing System - See details

Euro-Argo The Euro-Argo array is the European component of a world wide in situ global ocean observing system, based on autonomous profiling floats. See details

IPY-CARE Climate for Arctic and its Role for Europe (CARE) - a European component of the International Polar Year. See Project website: www.ipy-care.org

iAOOS The integrated Arctic Ocean Observing System - an AOSB-CliC Observing Plan for the International Polar Year. See details

DAMOCLES Developing arctic modeling and observing capabilities for Long-term Environmental Studies. See DAMOCLES website: www.damocles-eu.org

ASOF-N Arctic-Subarctic Ocean Flux Array for European Climate: North. See ASOF-N website

SBI Western Arctic Shelf Basin Interactions (SBI) - US Naval regional Contracting Centre. See details

Publications

2011

Polyakov I., Alexeev V., Ashik I., Bacon S., Beszczynska-Möller A., Carmack E., Dmitrenko I., Fortier L., Gascard J-C., Hansen E., Hölemann J., Ivanov V.,Kikuchi T., Kirillov S., Lenn Y-D., McLaughlin F., Piechura J., Repina I., Timokhov L., Walczowski W., Woodgate R., Fate of Early 2000s Arctic Warm Water Pulse, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2011
Walczowski W., Piechura J., Influence of the West Spitsbergen Current on the local climate, International Journal of Climatology (31), DOI: 10.1002/joc.2338, 2011
Zhurbas, V; Elken, J; Paka, V; Piechura, et al., On the possibility of convective overturning in the Slupsk Furrow overflow of the Baltic Sea OCEANOLOGIA Volume: 53 Issue: 3 Pages: 771-791 DOI: 10.5697/oc.53-2.771, 2011

2010

Cisek, M; Colao, F; Demetrio, E; et al., 2010, Remote and local monitoring of dissolved and suspended fluorescent organic matter off the Svalbard, JOURNAL OF OPTOELECTRONICS AND ADVANCED MATERIALS, Volume: 12, Issue: 7, Pages: 1604-1618.
Karnovsky, N; Harding, A; Walkusz, W; Kwasniewski, S; Goszczko, I; et al., 2010, Foraging distributions of little auks Alle alle across the Greenland Sea: implications of present and future Arctic climate change, MARINE ECOLOGY-PROGRESS SERIES, Volume: 415, Pages: 283-293.
Kwaśniewski S., Głuchowska M., Jakubas D., Wojczulanis-Jakubas K., Walkusz W., Karnovsky N., Błachowiak-Samołyk K., Cisek M. The impact of different hydrographic conditions and zooplankton communities on provisioning Little Auks along the West coast of Spitsbergen Progress in Oceanography 87: 72-82, 2010.
Osinski, R; Rak, D; Walczowski, W; Piechura, J, Baroclinic Rossby radius of deformation in the southern Baltic Sea; OCEANOLOGIA Volume: 52 Issue: 3 Pages: 417-429, 2010

2009

Piechura J., Walczowski W., Warming of the West Spitsbergen Current and sea ice north of Svalbard, Oceanologia, 51(2), pp 149-164), 2009
Walczowski W. Woda Arktyczna w Morzach Nordyckich - właściwości, zmienności, znaczenie klimatyczne, Polska Akademia Nauk Instytut Oceanologii w Sopocie, Rozprawy i monografie, 22/2009, ISBN 978-83-921552-5-6. 2009

2008

Holliday N. P., et al., 2008, Reversal of the 1960s to 1990s freshening trend in the northeast North Atlantic and Nordic Seas, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L03614, doi:10.1029/2007GL032675.
Schauer U., A. Beszczynska-Moeller, W. Walczowski, E. Fahrbach, J. Piechura, E. Hansen, Variation of Measured Heat Flow Through the Fram Strait Between 1997 and 2006, [w:] Arctic-Subarctic Ocean Fluxes, Springer Science, 15-43, 2008

2007

Polyakov, I.R., Timokhov, L., Dmitrenko, I., Ivanov, V., Simmons, H., Beszczynska-Möller, A., Dickson, R., Fahrbach, E., Fortier, L., Gascard, J.-C., Hölemann, J., Holliday, N.P., Hansen, E., Mauritzen, C., Piechura, J., Pickart, R., Schauer, U., Steele, M., Walczowski W., Observational program tracks Arctic Ocean transition to a warmer state, Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, Vol. 88(40), 398-399., 2007
Walczowski, W., Piechura J., 2007, Pathways of the Greenland Sea warming, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L10608, doi:10.1029/2007GL029974.

2006

Meier H. E.; Feistel R.; Piechura J.; et al., Ventilation of the Baltic Sea deep water: A brief review of present knowledge from observations and models, OCEANOLOGIA Volume: 48 Special Issue: SI Pages: 133-164, 2006
Piechura J.; Pempkowiak J.; Radziejewska T.; et al., What we know about the Baltic Sea: a summary of BSSC 2005, OCEANOLOGIA Volume: 48 Special Issue: SI Pages: 3-19 Published: 2006
Schlichtholz P., Goszczko I., 2006, Interannual variability of the Atlantic water layer in the West Spitsbergen Current at 76.5N in summer 1991-2003, Deep-Sea Research I 53 (2006) 608-626
Walczowski, W., Piechura J., 2006, New ewidence of warming propagation toward the Arctic Ocean, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 33, L1212601, doi:10.1029/2006GL025872

2005

Clement, J. L., W. Maslowski, L. Cooper, J. Grebmeier, W. Walczowski, Ocean circulation and exchanges through the northern Bering Sea - 1979-2001 model results, DEEP-SEA RESEARCH PART II-TOPICAL STUDIES IN OCEANOGRAPHY Volume: 52 Issue: 24-26 Pages: 3509-3540 DOI: 10.1016/j.dsr2.2005.09.010, 2005
Schlichtholz P., Goszczko I., 2005, Was the Atlantic water temperature in the West Spitsbergen Current predictible in the 1990s?, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 32, L04610, doi:10.1029/2004GL021724
Walczowski, W., Piechura J., Osiński R., Wieczorek P., 2005, The West Spitsbergen Current volume and heat transport from synoptic observations in summer, Deep-Sea Research I 52 (2005) 1374-1391