Articles | Volume 14, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/os-14-1147-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/os-14-1147-2018
Research article
 | 
27 Sep 2018
Research article |  | 27 Sep 2018

Does the East Greenland Current exist in the northern Fram Strait?

Maren Elisabeth Richter, Wilken-Jon von Appen, and Claudia Wekerle

Data sets

Physical oceanography measured with ultra clean CTD/Watersamplersystem during POLARSTERN cruise PS100 (ARK-XXX/2) T. Kanzow, W.-J. von Appen, J. Schaffer, E. Köhn, T. Tsubouchi, N. Wilson, P. F. Lodeiro, F. Evers, and A. Wisotzki https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.871030

Physical oceanography measured with CTD/Large volume Watersamplersystem during POLARSTERN cruise PS100 (ARK-XXX/2) T. Kanzow, W.-J. von Appen, J. Schaffer, E. Köhn, T. Tsubouchi, N. Wilson, and A. Wisotzki https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.871025

Lowered Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (LADCP) raw data collected during POLARSTERN cruise PS100 W.-J. von Appen, T. Kanzow, and J. Schaffer https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.870995

Raw data of continuous VM-ADCP (vessel-mounted Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler) profile during POLARSTERN cruise PS100 (ARK-XXX/2) T. Kanzow and H. Witte https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.867798

Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet topography, cavity geometry, and global bathymetry (RTopo-2), links to NetCDF files J. Schaffer and R. Timmermann https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.856844

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Short summary
In the Fram Strait, Arctic Ocean outflow is joined by Atlantic Water (AW) that has not flowed through the Arctic Ocean. The confluence creates a density gradient which steepens and draws closer to the east Greenland shelf break from N to S. This brings the warm AW closer to the shelf break. South of 79° N, AW has reached the shelf break and the East Greenland Current has formed. When AW reaches the Greenland shelf it may propagate through troughs to glacier termini and contribute to glacier melt.