Slowdown of Antarctic Bottom Water export from Weddell Sea

In this work, we investigated the possible driving factor behind the decadal declining in the Weddell Sea Bottom Water (WSBW) volume over the past 30+ years as reported by Abrahamsen et al. (2019). The WSBW volume continues to reduce after a short period of rebound from 2016-2018 and the resaon behind this is likely to be the climatic wind that drives a less expanded coastal polynya and a more convergent sea ice pack over the southern Weddell continental shelf. This climatic wind is believed to be part of the signal teleconnected to this negative polarity of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation since the early 1990s, acting as part of the natural variability.

More story and media coverage can be found here and here. The paper is available here.