Physical oceanography of the Greenland Sea

Abstract

Ocean-atmosphere interactions in the North Atlantic are responsible for heat transports that keep the Nordic region and North Western Europe 5–10°C warmer than the average of the corresponding latitude belt. This is to a large extent due to the ocean’s thermohaline circulation (THC). This circulation is driven by differences in water density, which is a function of temperature (thermo) and salinity (haline) and particularly by convection processes in the northern North Atlantic, especially the Labrador Sea and the Greenland Sea.

Therefore, the Greenland Sea has attracted much attention in the marine research community over the past decades. Scientific research in the Greenland Sea has been important to understand:

• The physical processes generating deep convection
• The role of sea ice in the deep convection process and biological production
• Uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and further transport into the ocean interior
• Variability in deep convection, especially the decrease in the Greenland Sea convection observed over the recent decades

The main incentive behind all these activities has been to understand the role of the Greenland Sea – and the rest of the Nordic Seas (Greenland, Norwegian and Iceland Seas) – in the climate system of the world.