OSNAP 2022

A US-led international effort, Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program (OSNAP), has provided a continuous record of the full-water column, trans-basin fluxes of heat, mass, and freshwater in the subpolar North Atlantic since 2014, in partnership with the UK, Netherlands, Canada and Germany. Results from the first four years of OSNAP observations have challenged the current understanding of overturning circulation in the subpolar North Atlantic. This grant provides funding for an additional four years of observations in order to deliver to the community a ten-year time series of the meridional overturning, heat and freshwater fluxes in the subpolar basin. Variations in these quantities have been invoked to explain changes in a wide range of physical, chemical and biological parameters in the North Atlantic, Nordic Seas, and Arctic Ocean. Thus, by quantifying Atlantic meridional overturning variability and understanding its drivers, OSNAP is providing a critical first step towards addressing societally-relevant, interdisciplinary questions concerning the melting of Greenland ice and Arctic sea-ice, heat content in the Arctic Ocean, climate of the Nordic Seas, and anthropogenic carbon storage.