Investigating patterns in bottom water stagnation and renewal in a fjord-like strait in the Faroe Islands

The northern part of the narrow fjord-like strait Sundalagið experiences bottom water stagnation with reduced oxygen concentrations almost every year. The onset is in spring as intruding oceanic water becomes less dense than the residing bottom water, and can no longer ventilate the bottom layer. It ends in late summer when the temperature falls, and precipitation and wind speed increase. In this study we use a decade of ocean temperature and salinity data as well as model data to investigate if there are patterns in e.g. temperature, salinity, tides, precipitation and wind that can explain the inter-annual variation in the degree and duration of stagnation and time of onset.