Temperature Trends and Climatic Variability of the Three Layers within the Gulf of St. Lawrence

The Gulf of St. Lawrence is characterized during summer by three temperature layers.  A surface layer is in quasi equilibrium with the atmosphere, a deep layer is transported in from the Atlantic Ocean, and in between is a Cold Intermediate Layer created the preceding winter. The spatial structure of these layers will be presented, followed by their temperature long term trends and inter-annual variability. The Gulf also has the southernmost winter sea-ice cover of the hemisphere, with large interannual variability as a consequence.  Links to air temperatures allow the estimation of past long term trends as well as expected climate change for conditions of the surface and cold intermediate layers and sea-ice conditions.