196 :\IAEIOX EXPEDITION TO DAVIS STRAIT AND BAFFIN BAY 



as the eye could reach. The physical state of the water column was 

 as follows: 



While the temperatures, surface to bottom, was practically alike, 

 the salinity of the upper 15 meters was very much lower in the melt- 

 ing ice field than it was to the southward, causing the density of the 



PACK 



2657 



t c e 



^653 



The stability of a Water Mass in the Ice Regions 



Figure 119. — The distribution of density which was found on February 28, 1921, near 

 Cape Race, Ncwt'oundhuid, alons the southern edge of a field of melting pack ice. 

 The marked stability of the water layers, at the time, precludes any interchange of 

 light-thaw water from the surface with the heavier water near the "bottom. J 



surface layers — a mixture of thaw water Avith sea water — to be 

 correspondingly lower.-"^^' The fact that these results show no such 

 distribution of temperature and salinity as would follow from Pet- 

 tersson's tank experiment is evidence that natural conditions 

 were not fully simulated in his laboratory experiment. The pro- 

 portions of thickness of ice to depth of" sea, the distribution of 



^"'Ulckotts (19.30, p. 1201. in discussing the conditions around a moltinu' iccVu-rg observed 

 i.v the ice patrol soutli of Ni'wfoundland, concludes that the prevailing dislnbution of tcui- 

 o ature and salinity in tlie .sea with depth hydrostaticall v prevents the cstablislinivnt of 

 a vertical circulation. 



