Circulation and water masses of the East Greenland shelf

Abstract

The water masses and circulation over the northern Greenland continental shelf are described based on two cruises to the region during the summers of 1979 and 1984. The cold Polar Water over the shelf was found to increase notably in salinity toward the shelf break and the East Greenland Polar Front. A colder, more saline, and relatively isolated fraction of the Polar Water was identified just above the Atlantic Intermediate Water of the front. A middepth layer, stable in time, indicates little vertical heat exchange. Warm Atlantic Intermediate Water was found to intrude close to the coast via a newly defined system of troughs in the shelf. The Polar Water was found to circulate over the shelf in a clockwise gyre. Baroclinic transports, northward near the coast with 0.58‐Sv mean flow and southward elsewhere with 1.47‐Sv mean flow, yielded a net southward transport in the East Greenland Current of 0.89 Sv.