Greenland Sea Studies. Part IV.

• Main Author: Aagaard,Knut
• Other Authors: WASHINGTON UNIV SEATTLE DEPT OF OCEANOGRAPHY
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1976
• Subjects: Physical and Dynamic Oceanography; *OCEAN CURRENTS; *GREENLAND SEA; VELOCITY; THESES; POWER SPECTRA; OCEANOGRAPHIC DATA; SEASONAL VARIATIONS; WIND VELOCITY; HEAT FLUX; FIELD CONDITIONS; SEA ICE; TIDES; DROGUE PARACHUTES; West Spitsbergen current; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Barents Sea; Bering Strait; Greenland; Arctic Basin; Canadian Archipelago; Greenland Sea; Sea ice; Spitsbergen
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA029248; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA029248

The West Spitsbergen Current flows north through the eastern Greenland Sea. The Greenland Sea is in turn the major avenue of exchange of mass and of thermal and kinetic energy between the Arctic Ocean and the rest of the world ocean. The flow through Bering Strait into the Arctic Basin is about 1.5 Sv (1 Sv = 1,000,000 cu m/sec) and < 1 Sv flows in through the Barents Sea, while about 2 Sv exit through the Canadian Archipelago. In contrast, the transport through the Greenland-Spitsbergen passage is about 7 Sv in each direction. In addition to the transport of heat and mass by the mean flow, much of the tidal energy in the Arctic Ocean enters through the Greenland-Spitsbergen passage. Doctoral thesis.