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An abrupt and persistent strengthening of the ocean currents forming the Atlantic subpolar gyre could have resulted from a large freshwater flooding event 8,200 years ago. New climate model simulations resolve the apparent contradiction of increased freshwater inflow and enhanced deep water formation in the North Atlantic.

Human induced climate change will probably reduce nature’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide, particularly in the North Atlantic and Northern Europe. An implication is that more carbon will remain in the atmosphere, and thereby intensify future climate change.

New observations reveal spectacular mixing rates and turbulence, and new insights into circulation structure and dynamics in deep waters spilling down to the North Atlantic.

As warm Atlantic Water flows north- and eastward along the coast of Svalbard it experiences strong cooling by heat loss to the atmosphere and to melting of ice. Direct measurements show the importance of strong tidal currents and shallow topography for the efficiency of this cooling.

A new version of the Bergen Climate Model is able to simulate important features of the observed climate over the last 150 years.

Stronger ocean currents have transported more heat to the Barents Sea over the last years. Despite this extra heat, the mean temperature has only increased modestly. The reason is a stronger heat loss caused by more open water during wintertime.

The Gulf of Alaska is the “graveyard” of storms in the North Pacific – these storms do not form locally and include tropical cyclones undergoing extra-tropical transitions, reaching the Gulf of Alaska, especially during summer and autumn.

A new study may lead to better forecasting of severe weather in polar regions. Cold air outbreaks over the ocean can be linked to large-scale weather patterns, and this leads the way to using new tools to forecast such events.

In a new study radioactive waste material from Sellafield and La Hague is used to shed light on ocean currents in the Nordic Seas, the Arctic Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean, and to test the performance of an ocean model in this region.

On the edges of the Arctic ice cover, in the marginal ice zones, melting rates of sea ice are reduced due to molecular effects on the interface between the ice and the ocean.

While most model studies of storminess in the current and future climate focus on the winter season when storms are stronger, this work addresses how storm track are represented in the summer using the Bergen Climate Model (BCM).