• Main Author: Erik Buch
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Greenland; East Greenland; east greenland current; north atlantic current; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation; Northwest Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.501.7337; http://journal.nafo.int/J26/buch.pdf

The oceanography along the Southwest Greenland fishing banks is dominated by the inflow of water masses originating from various regions in the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean carried to the area by the East Greenland Current, the Irminger Current and a side-branch of the North Atlantic Current. The existence of the latter transport has only recently been discovered and has led to the description of a new water mass in the Southwest Greenland area called the Northwest Atlantic Mode Water. During the 1981–97 period Greenland experienced great fluctuations in climate. The North Atlantic Oscillation index has since the early-1980s been in a persistent and exceptionally strong positive phase, which results in cold and dry conditions over Greenland. Greenland has been characterized by very cold conditions since 1980 especially in the 1982–84 period, when record cold winters were experienced. Similarly the 1989–94 period was also extremely cold. These cold atmospheric conditions were reflected in the waters off Southwest Greenland by temperatures well below normal in the upper 400 m. Along with an increase in the formation of "Westice", the ice limit moved so far south that the situation seldom seen, of "Westice " and "Storis " joining each other in the Julianehaab Bight during the winter months, has been experienced several times during the recent 15 years. Key words: currents, Greenland, ice, oceanography, temperature