OCEANOGRAPHIC OBSERVATIONS IN KANE BASIN 



September 1968 aiul July, September 1969 

 Martin J. Moynihan ^ 



INTRODUCTION 



Kane Basin is a part of the Nares Strait 

 system of basins and channels separating Elles- 

 mere Island from Greenland and connecting 

 Baffin Bay with the Lincoln Sea and the Arctic 

 Ocean (fig. 1). A sill at 250 meters in Kane 

 Basin restricts the transport of water at depths 

 greater than 250 meters between the Arctic 

 Ocean and Baffin Bay (fig. 2). 



The Coast Guard Oceanographic Unit has 

 conducted several surveys in the Nares Strait 

 region to investigate the flow of Arctic Water 

 through Kane Basin. The results of the 1963 

 and 1966 surveys by CGC EVERGREEN and 

 CGC EDISTO have been reported (Frances- 

 chetti et al., 1964 and Palfrey et al., 1968). The 

 results of the 1968 and 1969 surveys (fig. 3) in 



the same region will be reported here. The CGC 

 EASTWIND occupied 27 oceanographic sta- 

 tions in a preliminary survey of Kane Basin 

 in September 1968. During late July 1969 the 

 CGC WESTWIND occupied a section between 

 Cape Herschel, Ellesmere Island and Cape 

 Hatherton, Greenland three times in rapid suc- 

 cession to monitor the flow between Kane 

 Basin and Smith Sound. In September 1969 

 the CGC SOUTHWIND conducted a joint 

 oceanographic survey of Kane Basin with the 

 Naval Oceanographic Office to broaden the 

 knowledge of the distribution of physical and 

 geological parameters of the Kane Basin re- 

 gion. 



' Coast Guard Oceanographic Unit. Building 159-E. Washington 

 Navy Yard. Washington, D.C. 203HO. 



DATA ACQUISITION 



Temperature data and water samples were 

 collected by Nansen casts. The water samples 

 were analyzed on board with inductive salino- 

 meters. The conductivity values obtained were 

 converted to salinity by use of the Interna- 

 tional Oceanographic Tables published jointly 

 by UNESCO and the National Institute of 

 Oceanography of Great Britain (1966). Dis- 

 solved oxygen concentrations were determined 

 on board EASTWIND and SOUTHWIND by 

 the modified Winkler Method as described by 

 Strickland and Parsons ( 1968) . 



The temperature data were processed at the 

 Coast Guard Oceanographic Unit following the 

 procedures specified in the U.S. Naval Ocean- 

 ographic Office Publication No. 607 (1968). 

 Paired protected thermometers were used on 

 each bottle and unprotected reversing thermo- 

 meters were added on the deeper bottles. Sam- 

 pling depths were determined from L-Z curves 



AND PROCESSING 



based on thermometric depths and wire angle. 

 All calculations were performed on a PDP-5 

 digital computer utilizing programs described 

 by O'Hagan (1964). 



Volume transport calculations were accom- 

 plished by the solenoid method described by 

 Kollmeyer (1967). Due to the negative tem- 

 peratures found in the Kane Basin region, 

 this method does not yield a realistic heat flow 

 calculation. Therefore, the heat transport for 

 each section was computed by the following 

 equation : 



Q,=Pn,VCpT„, 



where 



Qi = heat transport (cal./sec.) 

 Pn. = mean density of seawater 

 Cp = specific heat of seawater 

 T„, = mean temperatui'e 

 V = volume transport 



