A Latent-and Sensible-Heat Polynya Model for the North Water, Northern Baffin Bay

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Abstract
The Pease latent-heat polynya model is coupled to a reduced-gravity, coastal upwelling model in order to simulate the formation and maintenance of the North Water (NOW), the Arctic's largest polynya, located in northern Beffin Bay. In this region, strong northerly winds during winter and spring drive ice southward as fast as it is produced locally (the Pease mechanism for polynya formation), and also produce upwelling of warm subsurface water along the west coast of Greenland. This upwelling provides an upward heat flux that melts ice near the coast (a sensible-host mechanism for polynya formation). This combined latent- and sensible-heat polynya model is formulated as an initial-boundary value problem with uniform winds. Its solution gives the tide evolution of the upper-layer velocity and depth, and also the polynya width as measured southward from the northern boundary of the polynya. There are two fundamental time scales in the problem: a fast one (of the order of days) that characterizes the... Abstract The Pease latent-heat polynya model is coupled to a reduced-gravity, coastal upwelling model in order to simulate the formation and maintenance of the North Water (NOW), the Arctic's largest polynya, located in northern Beffin Bay. In this region, strong northerly winds during winter and spring drive ice southward as fast as it is produced locally (the Pease mechanism for polynya formation), and also produce upwelling of warm subsurface water along the west coast of Greenland. This upwelling provides an upward heat flux that melts ice near the coast (a sensible-host mechanism for polynya formation). This combined latent- and sensible-heat polynya model is formulated as an initial-boundary value problem with uniform winds. Its solution gives the tide evolution of the upper-layer velocity and depth, and also the polynya width as measured southward from the northern boundary of the polynya. There are two fundamental time scales in the problem: a fast one (of the order of days) that characterizes the...

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