The East Greenland Polar Front in autumn

• Main Authors: Paquette, Robert G., Bourke, Robert H., Newton, John L., Perdue, William F.
• Other Authors: Operations Research (OR), Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.), Graduate School of Operational and Information Sciences (GSOIS)
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School 1985
• Subjects: East Greenland Current; East Greenland Polar Front; Fine structure; NOKTHWIND; Marginal Ice Zone; Molloy Deep Eddy; Greenland Sea Double-Diffusion; FRONTS(OCEANOGRAPHY); Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Greenland; Molloy; Molloy Deep; Arctic Submarine Laboratory; East Greenland; east greenland current; Greenland Sea
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10945/29257

Closely spaced salinity and temperature measurements in the region of the East Greenland Polar Front from 75 N to 79 N in October-November 1981 are presented. The Return Atlantic Current (RAC), having a core of relatively warm and saline Atlantic Intermediate Water (AIW) (T = 0.5 to 3.0 C, S = 34.0 to 35. 0), was found everywhere along a steep front separating it from the colder, fresher Polar Water. A narrow frontal jet was found to have velocities greater than 0.80 m/s where the station density was great enough to resolve its concentrated character. Notable fine structure was present, especially in the warm AIW just east of the front. A cold, saline water, forming a knee in the temperature-salinity correlation, was present in the upper margins of the RAC. The knee is formed primarily by warm AIW or Atlantic water flowing under the upper layers of water flowing form the Arctic Ocean. Calculations are presented to show that an initially isothermal underflow could be modified to a thick thermocline by double diffusion. Calculations of the rate of cooling of fine- structure elements by double diffusion indicate that the fine structure would have a limited lifetime (about 12 days) if its waters were not continually replenished supported in part by the Arctic Submarine Laboratory, Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego, CA under Work Order N 66001-84-WR00376. NA Prepared for: Director, Arctic Submarine Laboratory, Naval Ocean Systems Center http://archive.org/details/eastgreenlandpol00paqu