BJØRN HELLAND-HANSEN AND FRIDTJOF NANSEN. 



M.-N. Kl. 



Such values are impossible, and a density such as 28.20 (Stat. 4, 400 m.) 

 does not exist anywhere in the Ocean, except perhaps in the cold bottom- 

 water in some exceptional localities. If the Swedish oceanographers had 

 been aware of this they would hardly have been able to maintain that 

 salinities between 35.20 and 35.30 ^'00 may occur in the Spitsbergen At- 

 lantic Current. We think that the facts mentioned above prove the impos- 

 sibility of salinities as high as these ever occurring in this Current. 



In the vertical sections of the Atlantic Current west of Lofoten, the 

 highest salinities, in all years when the observations were taken, were be- 

 tween 35.21 and 35.25 '^/00; and these high values were only observed in 

 small isolated patches in each section, otherwise the highest salinities were 

 between 35.16 and 35.18 ° 00. How then would it be possible to expect 

 such high salinities in the current west of Spitsbergen ? And if salinities 

 as high as 35.29 ° 00 could occur in the Atlantic Current in 79° N. Lat., 

 what would the salinity of this water have been when it passed the region 

 of Lofoten, and how much more when it passed through the Færoe- 

 Shetland Channel? Nansen [1906] has proved that bottom- water with 

 unusually high salinities may be found in the Arctic seas, the high salinit}' 

 being produced by the formation of ice on the sea-surface. But this is 

 only where the sea is shallow, and the water very cold. There is no such 

 possibility in the warm waters of the Spitsbergen Atlantic Current. 



The Temperature of the Spitsbergen Atlantic Current. 



By computing the mean temperature in each vertical section of the 

 waters carried b}' the Spitsbergen Atlantic Current, it might be possible 

 to get some rough estimate of the loss of heat of these waters during 

 their northward course. A calculation such as this presents, however, 

 several difficulties, which will necessarily make the result uncertain. 



On the one hand for instance, it is difficult to tell where the limits of 

 the Atlantic water are in each section. One can hardl}' go by the same 

 salinity, because this decreases gradually northwards, as was mentioned 

 above, the waters carried by the current, having a considerably lower 



