APPENDIX A: PETTERSSON — 4 — 



Regarding this great body of Atlantic water, which enters the Barents Sea, or the so- 

 called North Cape current, I quote the following passage from Dr. L. Breitfuss': 

 Barents Sea "The geographical position of the North Cape current and its ramifications is constant, 

 quite as constant, as is that of our rivers. Seasonal changes occur, but only in the in- 

 tensity of the current, in the range of its temperature and in the degree of concentration 

 of the salt held in solution by its water". Of what nature are these changes? The 

 answer is contained in the following tables, giving the salinity and temperature of dif- 

 ferent waterlayers found at varying depths in the most southerly of the current ramific- 

 ations during June and November: 



"The rise of temperature, amounting for the upper layer to about o°-8o, for the 

 lower to about i°-5, cannot possibly be attributed solely to the summer heat transmitted 

 perpendicularly from the surface. Quite as impossible is it to attribute the increase in 

 salinity towards winter, amounting to O'lo — 0-24 °/oo, to the continental affiuvies, which 

 doubtlessly have a stronger diluting effect upon the sea in June than in the autumn." 



"We are here confronted by a more powerful agent than either the heating of the 

 sea surface during summer in these latitudes or the dilution of the surface water by 

 continental freshwater". 



"In my opinion, this agent is the Atlantic current itself, whose dynamic 

 intensity in these parts of the ocean attains its maximum during 

 November or later." So far Dr. Breitfuss'. 



The Russian investigators have thus detected the occurrence of an annual expansion 

 of the Atlantic current in the autumn. The accumulation of warm water during this season, 

 which chiefly affects the deeper waterlayers, is represented in the following diagram of 

 temperatures 2, which comprises a period of 3 years. The hydrographie variation, which 

 it represents, can thus be regarded as the outcome of authentic observations of existing 

 facts, not as the representation of an instantaneous hydrographie situation. 

 Heatwave The Barents Sea is thus annually invaded by a heatwave, that raises the temperature 



Barents Sea of the bottom layer from 1° in June (the cold season of the water) to 5° or more in 

 November (the summer of the water), culminating during the latter part of the autumn. 

 This heatwave does not penetrate the waterlayers perpendicularly from the surface. It is an 

 outside impulse from the West, originating in an accumulation of Atlantic water. This 



1 Ozeanographische Studien über das Barentz Meer. Peterra. Mitt. 1904. II. p. 46. 



2 N. Knipowitsch, Expedition für wissenschaftlich-praktische Untersuchungen an der Murmanküste. 

 I. p. 520. 1902. 



