Barents Sea Seasonal Temperature and Salinity Atlas 1965-2016

The Barents Sea is one of the main pathways of Atlantic Water flowing towards the Arctic Ocean and a part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Thus, changes in its water masses potentially affect the global thermohaline circulation through the alteration of the dense water formation process. This seasonal atlas of the Barents Sea includes a compilation of available observations of temperature and salinity from the period 1965–2016. The data are provided at a regular grid and at seasonal temporal resolution, using the Data Interpolating Variational Analysis (DIVA) tool, which allows for a minimization of the expected error with respect to the true field. The atlas is made freely accessible as user-friendly NetCDF files to encourage further research in the BS physics.