Hydrographic Evidence for Dense Shelf Water Contributions to
the Arctic and Nordic Basins
James H. Swift
UCSD Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Mail Code 0214
9500 Gilman Dr. La Jolla, CA 92093-0214, U.S.A
Tel: 1-619-534-3387
Fax: 1-619-534-7383
jswift@ucsd. edu
The "arctic" gyres of the Nordic Seas produce dense, well-ventilated waters in winter. This open ocean convection is complemented by outflows of dense shelf waters to the Arctic and Nordic basins. A careful examination of hydrographic data collected during 1981-97 from the boundaries of the deep basins of the Nordic Seas and Arctic Ocean does indeed yield evidence of near-bottom characteristics which must have been derived from the continental shelf seas. The Barents and Chukchi Seas are clear sources of these dense waters, and evidence also points to the Kara and/or Laptev Seas as dense shelf water sources. The Barents Sea's ventilation of Nansen Basin waters in the sigma-theta 27.8 to 28.05 range may rival that received from the Fram Strait inflows, which contain ventilated Atlantic Water and Greenland Gyre waters.
