thickness is about two to three meters (Helland-Hansen and Nansen 

 1909). Except for any icebergs which might be encountered, the rest 

 of the ice in the survey area usually will be less than a year old 

 and will be completely melted during the summer (Lationov e_t al . 

 1960). 



Figure 3. Ice Conditions Encountered by EDISTO in 1964. 



Tides, 



Tides in the northern Greenland Sea appear to be basically semidiurnal, 

 and except for some nearshore regions, the spring tidal range is 

 approximately one meter (U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office 1958). 



IV. RESULTS OF PREVIOUS INVESTIGATIONS 



Although only a small amount of data were available to them, 

 many of the major oceanographic features of the Greenland Sea were 

 correctly described by Helland-Hansen and Nansen (1909) . According 

 to them, the two major currents in the northern Greenland Sea were 

 the West Spitsbergen Current (which they called the Spitsbergen Atlantic 

 Current) which sets north close to the shores of Svalbard and the 

 East Greenland Current which sets south close to the shores of Greenland 

 (Fig. 4). They claimed that the East Greenland Current gives off 

 an eastward branch north of Jan Mayen Island and that the West Spitsbergen 

 Current divides near northern Svalbard, with one part moving westward 

 and the other setting east into the Polar Basin. Thus, except for 

 the eastward moving portion of the West Spitsbergen Current, their 

 conception of the circulation of the upper layers of the Greenland 

 Sea could be described loosely as a large cyclonic gyre (sometimes 

 referred to as the Greenland Gyre). According to them, currents 

 in the central regions of this cyclone were relatively sluggish and 



