Alexey Pavlov

Dr. Alexey K. Pavlov
Research Scientist, Norwegian Polar Institute, Tromsø, Norway
pavlov.alexey.k@gmail.com

Alexey Pavlov is working as a research scientist at the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø, Norway since July 2013. Over the past year, Alexey worked as a director at the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS). Prior to that he worked as a junior research scientist at the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia.

His recently published paper was a part of Alexey’s Ph.D. thesis completed at the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in 2012. During his Ph.D. studies, Alexey was lucky to take part in more than ten field campaigns up north to Svalbard, and to observe and feel a fragile and fascinating Arctic environment.

In his thesis, he looked at a temperature regime in Svalbard fjords and adjacent waters of the Fram Strait based on historical and in situ observations. Currently, Alexey still deals with the Arctic oceanography and is focusing on linkages between physical, biogeochemical and biological processes, and particularly on marine optics and contribution of dissolved and particulate matter to the absorption of light in surface waters of the Fram Strait.

In the meantime, Alexey is blogging about polar research on twitter at @pavlov_research.


Warming of Atlantic water in two West Spitsbergen fjords over the last century (1912-2009) Alexey K. Pavlov, Vigdis Tverberg, Boris V. Ivanov, Frank Nilsen, Stig Falk-Petersen, Mats A. Granskog

Polar Research 2013, 32, 11206, http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/polar.v32i0.11206

Grønfjorden, one of the studied fjordsGrønfjorden, one of the studied fjordsWest Spitsbergen fjords and adjacent waters are key areas to monitor the inflow of warm Atlantic Water carried northwards by the West Spitsbergen Current to the interiors of the Arctic Ocean. The recently observed warming of west Spitsbergen fjords has led to anomalous sea-ice conditions and has implications for local marine ecosystem. Similar changes might be expected in other areas of the Arctic Ocean in the nearest future.

In this study, Alexey Pavlov and co-authors investigated long-term trends of maximum temperature of Atlantic Water in two west Spitsbergen fjords, Isfjorden and Grønfjorden (78 N), spanning from 1876 to 2009. Trends throughout the last century (1912-2009) indicate an increase of 1.9oC and 2.1oC in the maximum temperature during autumn months for Isfjorden and Grønfjorden, respectively.

A recent warming event in the beginning of the 21st century is found to be more than 1oC higher than the second warmest period in the time series. To explain the variability of the maximum temperature in the area under study, authors used mean sea-level pressure (MSLP) data from ERA-40 and ERA-Interim reanalysis data sets produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and mean temperature in the core of the West Spitsbergen Current (WSC) at the Sørkapp Section along 76.38N.

A correlation analysis confirmed previous findings, showing that variability in the hydrography of the fjords can be explained mainly by two external factors: Atlantic Water temperature variability in the West Spitsbergen Current and regional patterns of the wind stress field. To take both processes into consideration, a multiple regression model accounting for temperature in the WSC core and MSLP over the area was developed and showed a reasonable agreement with observations for the period 1977-2009.

The authors believe that this study will serve as a good physical base for future biological, ecosystem and other interdisciplinary studies conducted on Spitsbergen.

Alexey Pavlov is working as a research scientist at the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø, Norway since July 2013