in the longitudinal section (fig. 34) about to station 8328, north of 

 which it rises abruptly to become associated with one of the westward 

 branchings of the West Greenland Current. In the Loks Land- 

 Fyllas Bank section (fig. 35) the warm water associated with the West 

 Greenland Current, with a temperature greater than 4°, extends as a 

 band centered at about 500 meters almost completely across the 

 section. Figure 36 shows only a remnant of West Greenland Current 

 with a temperature greater than 3° on the Greenland shelf. A much 

 larger cross section, however, is enclosed by the 1° isotherm. Before 

 leaving the temperature sections we wish to note the manner in which 

 the 2° isothern closely parallels the slope of the bottom in figures 33 

 and 34. 



Figures 37 through 40 show the salinity distribution along the 

 same four sections for which the temperature distribution has been 

 presented above. In figure 37 the highest salinities are found in the 

 core of the Irminger Current component of the West Greenland 

 Current, with a maximum of 35.04°/oq. The area of salinity greater 

 than 34.90 spreads downward and seaward producing a deep salinity 

 maximum layer at about 2,500 meters. This is interrupted at station 

 8315, although it usuallj- extends as a continuous layer to the vicinity 

 of the Labrador side of the section. The swifter currents in the upper 

 layers are approximately normal to the South Wolf Island-Cape 

 Farewell section with both the West Greenland Current and the 

 Labrador Current having relatively cold and fresh water shoreward 

 and relatively warm and saline w^ater making up the seaward margins 

 of the current. Also, along the offshore margin of the West Green- 

 land Current the adjacent water of the central Labrador Sea, while 

 not as warm as the warm core of the Irminger Current component of 

 the West Greenland Current, is warmer than the inshore part of the 

 West Greenland Current. Thus there is a possibility of adjacent 

 waters of differing T-S characteristics within a constant density 

 surface mixing to produce a slightly denser mixed water, and this 

 possibility exists, not only along the offshore margin of the warm 

 saline part of the peripheral currents but also to a lesser degree along 

 the steep horizontal gradients of temperature and salinitj^ within the 

 peripheral currents. 



Figure 38 shows the same downward and seaward spreading of this 

 salinity maximum layer from the westward branching of the West 

 Greenland Current at the southern end of Davis Strait. Figure 39 

 is not as definite but the salinity maximum layer is identifiable. In 

 figure 40 there seems to be some indication of downward mixing along 

 the Baffin Island side. 



As noted in Bulletin No. 47 (1961 season) of this series, while all 

 of tlie oxygen values found in the Labrador Sea are high, the higher 

 values are associated with cold parent water masses and the lower 

 oxygen values are associated with warm parent water masses. Thus 



75 



