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Award ID contains: 0632231

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  1. Abstract This study investigates the biogeochemical drivers of aragonite saturation state (ΩAr) in Baffin Bay, with a focus on the relatively undersampled west Greenland shelf. Our findings reveal two main depth‐dependant processes controlling the spatial distribution of ΩArin Baffin Bay; within the upper 200 m, lower ΩArcoincides with increasing fractions of Arctic‐outflow waters, while below 200 m organic matter respiration decreases ΩAr. A temporal analysis comparing historical measurements from 1997 and 2004 with our 2019 data set reveals a significant decrease in the ΩArof Arctic‐outflow waters, coinciding with reduced total alkalinity (TA). However, no discernible anthropogenic ocean acidification signal is identified. Significant Arctic water fractions (20%–40%) are found to be present on the west Greenland shelf, associated with reduced TA and ΩAr. A numerical modeling simulation incorporating a passive tracer demonstrates that periodic changes in wind direction lead to a switch from onshore to offshore Ekman transport along the Baffin Island current, transporting Arctic waters toward the west Greenland shelf. This challenges the conventional understanding of Baffin Bay's circulation and underscores the need for further research on the region's physical oceanography. Based on salinity‐TA relationships, surface waters on the west Greenland shelf have a significantly lower meteoric TA end‐member compared to waters of the Baffin Island Current in western Baffin Bay. The low eastern TA freshwater end‐member agrees well with recent glacial meltwater TA measurements, suggesting that glacial meltwater is the main freshwater source to surface waters on the west Greenland shelf. 
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  2. The Davis Strait observing system was established in 2004 to advance understanding of the role of Arctic – sub-Arctic interactions in the climate system by collecting sustained measurements of physical, chemical and biological variability at one of the primary gateways that connect the Arctic and subpolar oceans. Efforts began as a collaboration between researchers at the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory and the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Ocean’s Bedford Institute of Oceanography, but has grown to include researchers from the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, Greenland Climate Institute, Danish Technological University, University of Alberta and University of Colorado, Boulder. The project is a component of the NSF Arctic Observing and Atlantic Meridional Overturning Networks, and the international Arctic-Subarctic Ocean Flux (ASOF) program, Global Ocean Ship-Based Hydrographic Investigations Program (GO-SHIP), Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON), Arctic Monitoring Assessment Programme (AMAP) and OceanSITES system. A mooring array spanning the entire Davis Strait has been in place nearly continuously since September 2004 as part of the Davis Strait observing system, collecting year-round measurements of temperature, salinity and velocity extending to the sea surface/ice-ocean interface. The mooring typically included 14 moorings, 4 on each shelf and 6 in the center of the strait, that are recovered and data offloaded each autumn. Exact mooring location, instrumentation, and deployment duration varied slightly over time. This dataset consists of Level 2 data from the Davis Strait mooring array. Each file contains data from a single sensor (e.g., MicroCAT temperature and salinity measurements or ADCP velocity measurements) at one mooring site collected during a single deployment (typically one year long). Files also include quality control flags. More details about the project can be found at https://iop.apl.washington.edu/project.php?id=davis. 
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