Convection in the oceanic waters west of Britain

• Published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Section B. Biological Sciences
• Main Author: Meincke, J.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1986
• Subjects: General Medicine; Arctic; Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0269727000004504; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0269727000004504

Synopsis Preliminary results from a winter and a summer cruise in 1984 to the area west of the U.K. continental slope are presented to discuss the structure and the spatial scales of convection. Winter convection events were found to reach a depth of 630 m with horizontal scales of the order of 50 km. The number of areas with actual convection to maximum depth was small at the particular time of the cruise, but the vertical structure in the investigated area indicated numerous convection events over a longer period. The principal vertical structure of the upper 600 m in winter was preserved until the following summer, which agreed with the age of the summer upper layer water estimated from the tritium/helium ratio. This characterises the area to be one of low advection, which can also be indirectly concluded from the fact that the northward flow of 4 Sverdrup of Atlantic Water through the Faeroe-Shetland Channel is supplied by 2 Sverdrup from the current over the continental slope west of U.K. and 2 Sverdrup of flow along the Arctic Front between Iceland and the Faeroes.