76 



MARION AND GENERAL GREENE EXPEDITIONS 



of the channel around the 400-meter depth, marks Irminger-Atlan- 

 tic water of the West Greenland Current. In its passage of 600 

 miles along the Greenland slope this water, solely through mixing, 

 lost approximately 4° C. of its temperature and 0.50%o of its 

 salinity in a period of 3 months after passing Gape Farewell. The 

 salinity profile (fig. 44) records two reservoirs of fresh water, one 

 on either side of Davis Strait, the larger of which hugged the 

 American side. Solely on the basis of such a distribution, currents 

 normal to the section are predicated for Davis Strait with the more 

 voluminous flow on the Baffin Land side. 



A north-south temperature profile through Davis Strait (fig. 45) 

 emphasizes the shearing action of the currents — a southerly com- 



FiGUKH 45. — The vertical distribution of temperature longitudinally through midchannel 

 of Davis Strait. (For station identiflcation, see fig. 38.) 



ponent dominated the upper layers to a depth of nearly 300 meters 

 and a northerly component prevailed from there to the bottom. 

 In this manner cold water spread southward in the surface layers 

 and warmer water worked northward into Baffin Bay. Practically 

 identical salinity but higher temperature of the channel stream 

 across Davis Strait Ridge marked this branch of the West Green- 

 land Current as an eventual supply of Baffin Bay. 



The extent of the production and propagation of the bottom 

 water of Baffin Bay is of particular interest to us, inasmuch as 

 such water may indirectly affect the deeper water of the Labrador 

 Basin. That a great part of the bottom water of Baffin Bay is 

 probably formed by the intermixture of Atlantic and Arctic masses 

 in the northern part of the bay is the opinion of Commander Riis- 

 Carstensen expressed in a letter to one of us. The oxygen dis- 

 tribution of Baffin Bay (fig. 148, p. 187) indicates that bottom water 



