Works
Decadal Coherence of Arctic Thermohaline Staircases

Decadal Coherence of Arctic Thermohaline Staircases

Salinity of detected layers across time
The temporal evolution of salinity of the Connected Layers data, where different staircase layers are given different colors. Blue and pink markers denote the values of the Lower Halocline Waters (LHW) and Atlantic Waters (AW), respectively, for each of the 15,202 profiles. The vertical dashed lines on every August 15th denote the boundary between year-long time periods on which the clustering algorithm was run.

Abstract: Thermohaline staircase layers residing above the relatively warm Atlantic Water layer have been consistently observed in the Arctic Ocean for over 50 years. Previous studies demonstrate that these structures exhibit large-scale spatial coherence. However, on time scales beyond a few years, both the coherence and evolution of these basin-wide layers are unknown. Using Ice-Tethered Profiler data from 2005 to 2022 in the Beaufort Gyre Region, we track staircase layers across time and space with an unsupervised clustering method. Individual layers are found to be coherent across the entire 17-year time period, with properties that would evolve on 40 to 50-year timescales if the current observed trend continues. This quantifies, for the first time, the decadal-scale coherence of basin-wide thermohaline staircases in the Arctic Ocean. These results raise important questions regarding the interplay of small-scale processes driving staircase stability and large-scale oceanic changes in response to a rapidly changing Arctic.

Schee, M.G., E. Rosenblum, J.M. Lilly, L. Haines, and N. Grisouard (2026) “Decadal Coherence of Arctic Thermohaline Staircases,” Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 131(9):e2026JC024055, DOI: 10.1029/2026JC024055

Unable to display PDF file. Download instead.

I presented this work at the 2026 Ocean Sciences Meeting in the poster “Decadal coherence of thermohaline staircase layers in the Arctic Ocean’s Canada Basin.”