The Modern Current Regime Across the Greenland-Scotland Ridge

The Greenland-Scotland ridge system is not only a topographical boundary between the basins of the Norwegian-Greenland seas and the basins of the mid-latitude North Atlantic, but it also plays a decisive role in the location of the zone separating water masses of different climatological origin. This is readily demonstrated in Figure 1 showing the ridge system to be an area of strong temperature contrasts. The most important water masses merging there are characterized in Figure 2 by means of their temperature and salinity characteristics. The two extremes are Atlantic waters with high salinities and high temperatures originating from south of the ridge and Polar waters with low temperatures and low salinities relating their origin to surface waters influenced by melting and run-off into the Polar Sea. The two Arctic waters (intermediate and deep) received their relatively high salinities from Atlantic waters and have obtained their low temperatures from cooling in the Greenland-Norwegian seas.