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Arctic–Subarctic Ocean Fluxes pp 629–652Cite as

Convection in the Western North Atlantic Sub-Polar Gyre: Do Small-Scale Wind Events Matter?

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In 1912, the polar explorer and scientist Fridtjof Nansen published an article entitled “Bottom Water and the Cooling of the Ocean”, in which he discussed the origin of the deep water in the North Atlantic south of the Greenland–Scotland Ridge (Nansen 1912). It was known at the time that dense water spills over the ridge system, both through Denmark Strait and between Iceland and the Faroes. Nansen argued, however, that these sources were insufficient to ventilate the vast body of deep water in the North Atlantic basin. He postulated, therefore, that open-ocean convection must be occurring south of the ridge. Furthermore, he suspected that this process was taking place in the Irminger Sea, east of Greenland. He noted that the cyclonic circulation in the Irminger basin (originally documented by Knudsen 1899) would help keep restratifying waters at the fringes, and that the center of the gyre, where the circulation was weak, would be conducive for deep convection.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA

    Robert S. Pickart & Kjetil Våge

  2. University of Toronto, M5S 1A1, Toronto, ON, Canada

    G. W. K. Moore

  3. University of East Anglia, NR4 7TJ, Norwich, UK

    Ian A. Renfrew

  4. Danish Meteorological Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Mads Hvid Ribergaard

  5. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 8092, Zürich, Switzerland

    Huw C. Davies

Authors
  1. Robert S. Pickart
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  2. Kjetil Våge
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  3. G. W. K. Moore
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  4. Ian A. Renfrew
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  5. Mads Hvid Ribergaard
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  6. Huw C. Davies
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, NR33 0HT, Lowestoft, UK

    Robert R. Dickson

  2. University of Hamburg, D-20146, Hamburg, Germany

    Jens Meincke

  3. University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Peter Rhines

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Pickart, R.S., Våge, K., Moore, G.W.K., Renfrew, I.A., Ribergaard, M.H., Davies, H.C. (2008). Convection in the Western North Atlantic Sub-Polar Gyre: Do Small-Scale Wind Events Matter?. In: Dickson, R.R., Meincke, J., Rhines, P. (eds) Arctic–Subarctic Ocean Fluxes. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6774-7_27

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