The East Greenland Current and its impacts on the Nordic Seas: Observed trends in the past decade

Abstract

For the past 30 years, it has been known that dense waters are created in the Arctic Ocean. However, before the late 1980s, observations indicated that Arctic Ocean deep waters only modified the deep water in the Greenland Sea, which was still thought of as the major source of dense water. In the mid-1990s, this picture began to fade. The deep convection in the Greenland Sea weakened and only Arctic Intermediate Water was formed. A deep salinity maximum was reinforced and a temperature maximum emerged at mid-depth. The densities of the salinity and temperature maxima were those of the deep waters in the Arctic Ocean, and one possibility was that waters below the convection were ventilated by Arctic Ocean deep waters from the East Greenland Current. Between 1998 and 2010, the salinity and temperature of the deep water in the Greenland Sea increased, implying continuous input from the East Greenland Current. Water from the Greenland Sea advected to Fram Strait now has almost Arctic Ocean characteristics and cannot significantly change the outflowing Arctic Ocean waters by mixing in the East Greenland Current, leading to a more-rapid transformation of the deep Greenland Sea water column. © 2012 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea.