A study of the large scale circulation and water mass formation in the Nordic seas and Arctic ocean

On the world ocean circulation. Volume I, Some global features/North Atlantic circulation

“…Figure 1-87b is an update of Figure 1-87a by Dickson and Brown (1994). There is a recent dissertation by Mauritzen (1993) (Lee, 1974) of the path and location of the overflows is shown in Figure 1-88, which anticipates rather well much of Figure 1-87, and other overflow schemes.…”

“…All of the above is simply another (horizontal) version of the discussion around . sections of this report (and according to Mauritzen (1993), McCartney (1992), McCartney and Talley (1984), Dickson and Brown (1994), Price and Baringer (1994), Schmitz (1995), and SM93), 5 Sv of "NAC upper layer" water with some MOW influence enters the polar seas on the easternmost side of the northernmost North Atlantic.…”

“…In Figure I -12, 3 Sv of upper layer water and 2 Sv of ("upper") Intermediate .Water, with the upper layer water having been converted from North Atlantic Central vVater (NACvV) to Subpolar Mode vVater (SPM\V) by convection along its path in the subpolar region (McCartney, 1996), enter the polar seas of the North Atlantic from the easternmost branch of the North Atlantic Current and are modified in the Arctic (Mauritzen, 1993) and exit the Denmark Straits (3 Sv) and Iceland-Scotland Gap (2 Sv) as overt1ow…”

“…Rather, upper layer waters are progressively cooled, sink by convection, and are modified by lateral and vertical mixing as they move around the northern recirculation of the NAC or classical subpolar gyre that is both wind-driven and a cooling spiral, converting NAGW into SPlvi\V into LS\V. As the water of subtropical origin in the NAC turns northward and westward, about 5 Sv are lost first to the nordic seas (Mauritzen, 1993) igure 1-87b: The deep circulation in the northern North Atlantic, adapted from Dickson and Brown (1994).…”

Water mass distribution and Polar Front structure in the Southwestern Barents Sea

“…More recently, Pfirman et al [1994] reported an Atlantic water return flow along the eastern flank of Spitzbergen Bank based on a water mass core analysis. Finally, in a study of the production of dense water that feeds the overflows across the Greenland-Scotland Ridge, Mauritzen [1993] suggested that Atlantic water recirculation in the Barents Sea is part of the pre-conditioning for later deep convection in the Greenland Sea. Her results not only support the recirculation hypothesis, they also suggest that processes active along the recirculation path have implications beyond the regional circulation by affecting Greenland Sea deep convection.…”