Long-lived vortices as a mode of deep ventilation in the Greenland Sea

Jean-Claude Gascard (), Andrew J. Watson, Marie-José Messias, K. Anders Olsson, Truls Johannessen and Knud Simonsen
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Jean-Claude Gascard: Université Pierre et Marie Curie
Andrew J. Watson: University of East Anglia
Marie-José Messias: University of East Anglia
K. Anders Olsson: Göteborg University
Truls Johannessen: University of Bergen
Knud Simonsen: Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center

Nature, 2002, vol. 416, issue 6880, 525-527

Abstract: Abstract The Greenland Sea is one of a few sites in the world ocean where convection to great depths occurs1,2,3,4—a process that forms some of the densest waters in the ocean. But the role of deep convective eddies, which result from surface cooling and mixing across density surfaces followed by geostrophic adjustment5, has not been fully taken into account in the description of the initiation and growth of convection6. Here we present tracer, float and hydrographic observations of long-lived (∼1 year) and compact (∼5 km core diameter) vortices that reach down to depths of 2 km. The eddies form in winter, near the rim of the Greenland Sea central gyre, and rotate clockwise with periods of a few days. The cores of the observed eddies are constituted from a mixture of modified Atlantic water that is warm and salty with polar water that is cold and fresh. We infer that these submesoscale coherent eddies contribute substantially to the input of Atlantic and polar waters to depths greater than 500 m in the central Greenland Sea.

Date: 2002
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DOI: 10.1038/416525a

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