Abstract
Abstract. From 1994 to 2011, instruments measuring ocean currents (Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers; ADCPs) have been moored on a section crossing the Faroe–Shetland Channel. Together with CTD (Conductivity Temperature Depth) measurements from regular research vessel occupations, they describe the flow field and water mass structure in the channel. Here, we use these data to calculate the average volume transport and properties of the flow of warm water through the channel from the Atlantic towards the Arctic, termed the Atlantic inflow. We find the average volume transport of this flow to be 2.7 ± 0.5 Sv (1 Sv = 106 m3 s–1) between the shelf edge on the Faroe side and the 150 m isobath on the Shetland side. The average heat transport (relative to 0 °C) was estimated to be 107 ± 21 TW (1 TW = 1012 W) and the average salt import to be 98 ± 20 × 106 kg s−1. Transport values for individual months, based on the ADCP data, include a large level of variability, but can be used to calibrate sea level height data from satellite altimetry. In this way, a time series of volume transport has been generated back to the beginning of satellite altimetry in December 1992. The Atlantic inflow has a seasonal variation in volume transport that peaks around the turn of the year and has an amplitude of 0.7 Sv. The Atlantic inflow has become warmer and more saline since 1994, but no equivalent trend in volume transport was observed.
Highlights
The flow of warm and saline water of Atlantic origin across the Greenland–Scotland Ridge into the Nordic seas (Hansen and Østerhus, 2000) is the main oceanic mechanism for importing heat and salt from the Atlantic to the Arctic
Through its salt import it allows the waters in the Arctic Mediterranean (Nordic seas and Arctic Ocean) to maintain a sufficiently high density for atmospheric cooling to produce the dense water masses that return to the Atlantic Ocean as deep overflow to feed the deep branch of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation (Hansen and Østerhus, 2000)
We present data collected along the Fair Isle–Munken (FIM) standard section, hereafter referred to as the section, between 1994 and 2011 when there were a total of 105 occupations
Summary
The flow of warm and saline water of Atlantic origin across the Greenland–Scotland Ridge into the Nordic seas (Hansen and Østerhus, 2000) is the main oceanic mechanism for importing heat and salt from the Atlantic to the Arctic. The Atlantic inflow is carried by three separate branches (Fig. 1), one west of Iceland, one between Iceland and the Faroes, and one through the Faroe–Shetland Channel (FSC). The FSC is a deep channel running between the Faroe Islands and Shetland in a south-westward direction from depths of more than 2000 m in the Norwegian Sea to a sill of around 1000 m depth slightly southeast of the southernmost tip of the Faroe Plateau (Fig. 2).
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