Measured volume, heat, and salt fluxes from the Atlantic to the Arctic Mediterranean -: art. no. L07603

The flow of warm and saline Atlantic water towards the Arctic crosses the Greenland-Scotland Ridge in three current branches. Since the mid 1990's, extensive monitoring with quasi-permanent moorings and regular CTD cruises has been in operation on three sections crossing the branches. Averaged over the years 1999 to 2001, values of volume, heat (relative to 0 degrees C) and salt flux due to the total Atlantic inflow across the Greenland-Scotland Ridge into the Nordic Seas are estimated as 8.5 Sv (1 Sv = 10(6) m(3).s(-1)), 313.10(12) W, and 303.10(6) kg.s(-1). In this period, the average temperature and salinity of the Atlantic inflow were 8.5 degrees C and 35.25, respectively. Within the observational uncertainty, we do not find any significant seasonal variation of the volume flux, but a negative correlation between the inflow flux through the Faroe-Shetland Channel and through the other two gaps was indicated.