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Accessing the Inaccessible: Buoyancy-Driven Coastal Currents on the Shelves of Greenland and Eastern Canada

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Arctic–Subarctic Ocean Fluxes

One reason why the Polar and Sub-polar shelf seas are an important component of the global climate system is that they support the fluxes of large volumes of both solid and liquid freshwater supplied from the cryospheres, the hydrosphere and the atmosphere.

This chapter is about sub-Arctic shelf waters in the western Atlantic sector, the extent of which is illustrated in Fig. 28.1. We will discuss the relevant coasts of Greenland and eastern Canada: specifically, east Greenland from Belgica Bank through Denmark Strait to Cape Farewell; then west Greenland from the Labrador Sea through Davis Strait to Baffin Bay; then Baffin Island and the coast of Labrador. Finally, we will summarise what we think we know, and also what is important that we do not know.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK

    Sheldon Bacon

  2. Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Alberta, Canada

    Paul G. Myers

  3. Finnish Institute of Marine Research, FI-00561, Helsinki, Finland

    Bert Rudels

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

    David A. Sutherland

Authors
  1. Sheldon Bacon
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  2. Paul G. Myers
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  3. Bert Rudels
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  4. David A. Sutherland
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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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Bacon, S., Myers, P.G., Rudels, B., Sutherland, D.A. (2008). Accessing the Inaccessible: Buoyancy-Driven Coastal Currents on the Shelves of Greenland and Eastern Canada. 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_29

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