Redrawing the Iceland−Scotland Overflow Water pathways in the North Atlantic

Sijia Zou (), Amy Bower (), Heather Furey, M. Susan Lozier and Xiaobiao Xu
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Sijia Zou: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Amy Bower: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Heather Furey: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
M. Susan Lozier: Georgia Institute of Technology
Xiaobiao Xu: Florida State University

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Iceland-Scotland Overflow Water (ISOW) is a primary deep water mass exported from the Norwegian Sea into the North Atlantic as part of the global Meridional Overturning Circulation. ISOW has historically been depicted as flowing counter-clockwise in a deep boundary current around the subpolar North Atlantic, but this single-boundary-following pathway is being challenged by new Lagrangian observations and model simulations. We show here that ISOW leaves the boundary and spreads into the interior towards the central Labrador and Irminger basins after flowing through the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone. We also describe a newly observed southward pathway of ISOW along the western flank of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The partitioning of these pathways is shown to be influenced by deep-reaching eddies and meanders of the North Atlantic Current. Our results, in tandem with previous studies, call for a revision in the historical depiction of ISOW pathways throughout the North Atlantic.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15513-4

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