According to a recent study published in the Journal of Geophyscial Research, observations of wind and sea surface height revealed a large portion of variations in the warm water inflow.
Most of the warm water enters the Nordic Seas east and west of the Faroe Islands with the Shetland Current (SC) and the Faroe Current (FC). Both currents are monitored in the Svinøy section (SV).
The warm water flow into the Nordic Seas from the North Atlantic is important for the local climate and it contributes to the region’s mild temperatures. In addition, the flow supplies nutrients to the marine ecology. The authors discovered that the sea surface height helps to establish the slopes that drive the water inflow into the Nordic Seas.
A bulk amount of saline and warm Atlantic water flows into the Nordic Seas in two different branches: one is the Iceland-Faroe ridge or Faroe Current and the other is between the Shetland and Faroe islands. The water continues in the north side as the Norwegian Atlantic Current along the Norwegian coast, wherein it is observed in the Svinøy section.
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The study has revealed that the variations in the Faroe Current are mainly due to steric height changes in the Nordic Seas. Conversely, deviations in the Norwegian Atlantic Slope Current are extensively driven by direct wind forces that lead to strong cross slope along the European shelf.
The variations of the two sea surface height modes are observed by using land-based tide gauges. These can be used to reform water flow anomalies back in time. By observing the sea surface height directly with tide gauges, the volume transport variability of the Faroe Current can be explained by 22% and the Norwegian Atlantic Slope Current by 38%.
The study results show that high inflow anomalies match with warm anomalies that pass via the system and vice versa.
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