Export and cycling of trace elements by the Labrador Coastal Current and Labrador Current: the last conduits of fresher Arctic Water to the North Atlantic Ocean

While the Arctic Water (AW) trace element (TE) geochemistry has been well characterized along its flow path from the Chukchi Sea through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and Baffin Bay, there is still a knowledge gap regarding the cycling and fluxes of TEs advected by the Labrador Coastal Current and Labrador Current across Newfoundland and the Labrador shelf, the only major AW outflows which have not yet been sampled for TEs at high resolution, and therefore, no accurate budgets have been established to date. This study will provide an integrated perspective about the evolution of the TEs and nutrient signature of AW along its journey from the Bering Strait to the Labrador Sea, as well as will shed light on freshwater apportionment by means of various tracers (e.g., oxygen isotopes, nutrients, barium, gallium).

Collaborators: Nicholas Foukal (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA) and Laramie Jensen (University of Washington)