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The ice cover in the Greenland and Norwegian seas
Author(s) -
Wadhams Peter
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
reviews of geophysics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 8.087
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1944-9208
pISSN - 8755-1209
DOI - 10.1029/rg019i003p00345
Subject(s) - arctic ice pack , geology , sea ice , antarctic sea ice , fast ice , fjord , drift ice , ice shelf , oceanography , ice stream , cryosphere , seabed gouging by ice , climatology
The seasonal sea ice cover of the northern North Atlantic is reviewed, comprising the ice of the East Greenland Current, the ice cover around Svalbard, and the ice of the Barents Sea as far east as Franz Josef Land. The review considers various types of ice cover: (1) the fast ice along the coasts and in fjords, including ‘sikussak,’ or very old fast ice of exceptional thickness, (2) the transition zone between the fast ice and the main pack, including the positions and causes of recurring winter polynyas and the nature of the shear zone in NE Greenland, (3) the constitution, dynamics, and seasonal extent of the drifting pack ice, including interannual variations, (4) the processes of air‐ice‐ocean interaction which occur in the marginal ice zone, where the pack ice is influenced by an open ocean boundary.