DAVIS STRAIT AND LABRADOR SEA 135 



inshore margin of the Atlantic Current had a vohime of 9.6 million 

 cubic meters per second. 



Section X. — This section, located normal to the southwest slope 

 of the Grand Banks about 60 miles northwest of the Tail, illustrates 

 the diminutive proportions to which the Labrador Current shrank, 

 with a computed volume of only 0.12 million cubic meters per sec- 

 ond. Practically all of the cold current, except that which sank 

 below the depth of our observations, was turned back with the 

 Atlantic Current in the vicinity of the Tail. The Atlantic Current 

 recorded a volume of 6.6 million cubic meters per second. 



The foregoing set of seven velocity profiles (fig. 95) is believed 

 to be quite representative quantitatively of the Labrador Current 

 along the east side of the Grand Banks. Expressed in millions of 

 cubic meters per second it was as follows : 



Grand Bank sections 



R 2.7 U 2.2 W 1.6 



S 1. 1 V 4. 1 X 0. 1 



T 1.5 



The table shows that the average volume of the Labrador Current 

 in the Grand Banks sector the spring of 1934 was approximately 

 2 million cubic meters per second. Earlier computations of the 

 volume of the Labrador Current by Smith (1931) gave 3.2 million 

 cubic meters per second, which is probably somewhat too large, but 

 the above difference in no way alters the conclusions based upon 

 such quantitative data. 



HORIZONTAL DISTRIBUTION OF TEMPERATURE AND SALINITY 



The distribution of temperature and salinity around the Grand 

 Banks for the 100-, 200-, 400-, and 600-meter levels is represented on 

 figures 96 and 97. The maps have been constructed from the United 

 States Coast Guard's station observations 1536 to 1681 taken May 17- 

 25, 1934. (See Soule, 1935.) In order to obtain a more accurate pic- 

 ture of conditions southeast of the Tail, the observations from Coast 

 Guard stations 571-576 taken April 30-May 1, 1926 (see Smith, 1926) 

 have been utilized. Also in order to indicate the continuity of the 

 temperature and the salinity in the borders of the Atlantic Current 

 below the surface, the Michael Sars"" stations 67-69 (see Helland- 

 Hansen, 1930), which are located along the fifty-first meridian, have 

 been plotted. 



The sirnilarity between the horizontal distribution of temperature 

 and salinity and the map of the surface currents (fig. 117) is strik- 

 ing. Frigid low-salinity water, less than —1.0° C., wrapped itself 

 around the Grand Banks slope as far south as the Tail, while offshore 

 at similar levels salty water warmer than 14° C, is traceable as far 

 north as the forty-fifth parallel. Another feature common to both 

 figures 96 and 97 is the rapid decrease in the thermal and saline gradi- 

 ents with an increase in depth ; 17 isotherms on the 100-meter projec- 

 tion, for example, are replaced by only 2 on the 600-meter level. The 

 small differences between the temperatures and the salinities of the 

 farthest offshore observations of the Coast Guard and those farther 

 south in the axis of the Atlantic Current is good evidence that this is 



