DELIVERABLE D2.1 - Ifremer

water with contours laying against the Greenland slope. The pathway andmodification around the Reykjanes Ridge of overflow from the Faroe Bank Channelcan be seen in the waters between 2000 m and 3000m on the flanks of the ridge.Labrador Sea Water can be seen in a thick lens between 1000 m and 2000 m in theIrminger Basin, between 1500 and 2000 m on the eastern side of the Iceland Basin andin the waters at the bottom of the Rockall Trough. The waters in the trough betweenRockall and Hatton Bank appear to be particularly warm, saline and low in oxygen.The waters of the subpolar gyre are progressively cooler and fresher in each of thebasins northward, but the influence of its northern limb, the Irminger Current, can beseen deeper than 500 m in temperature, salinity and oxygen as it flows southwardabove the upper East Greenland continental slope.Figure 16 shows a section from the Nordic Seas which was not covered by the mainWOCE programme. The section runs along 74.5°N, between the Barents Shelf nearBear Island at 18.5°E, and the East Greenland Shelf, 14.6°W, observed in June 1999(Blindheim and Østerhus, 2005). From the east it descends from the Barents Sea intothe shallow, narrow, northern limit of the Norwegian Sea, crosses the KnipovichRidge into the deepest part of the Greenland Basin of the Greenland Sea and up ontothe East Greenland slope. Water that originated in the North Atlantic flows northalong the eastern boundary in the upper 400 m. The recirculation of this water asReturn Atlantic water is also visible in the relatively salty core above the GreenlandSlope. Arctic Intermediate waters spread across the whole section beneath theAtlantic waters to around 1100m (Blindheim and Østerhus, 2005). Between 2000 mand 3000 m at either end of the section and over the ridge are high salinity watersdeep waters that have entered the Nordic Seas from the Arctic, while the deep partsof the basin are filled with the local product of deep convection, the Greenland Seadeep water.24