We are only now beginning to understand the climatic impact of the remarkable events that are now occurring in subarctic waters. Researchers, however, have yet to agree upon a predictive model that links change in our northern seas to climate. This volume brings together the body of evidence needed to develop climate models that quantify the ocean exchanges through subarctic seas, measure their variability, and gauge their impact on climate.

" ... as soon as one has traversed the greater part of the wild sea, one comes upon such a huge quantity of ice that nowhere in the whole world has the like been known." "This ice is of a wonderful nature. It lies at times quite still, as one would expect, with openings or large fjords in it; but sometimes its movement is so strong and rapid as to equal that of a ship running before the wind, and it drifts against the wind as often as with it." Kongespeilet - 1250 A.D. ("The Mirror of Kings") Modern societies require increasing amounts influence on the water mass and on the resulting of scientific information about the environment total environment of the region; therefore, cer tain of its characteristics will necessarily be in whieh they live and work. For the seas this information must describe the air above the sea, included.

The book presents a wide description of hydrographic conditions in the studied area of the Norwegian and Greenland Seas. Variability of the Atlantic Water properties have been presented on the basis of time series obtained from oceanographic measurements performed each summer from 2000 to 2007 by the Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences. The warming observed in that period has been described in detail as well as cooling of the Atlantic Water flowing towards the Fram Strait in 2007. Furthermore, concepts regarding multi-branch structure of the West Spitsbergen Current have been presented, types of flows in individual branches as well as variability of the flows. Description of the structure, transports and variability of the sea currents is based mostly on hydrographic measurements and baroclinic calculations. The results confirm a leading role of the ocean in climate shaping and acknowledges the importance of the Thermohaline Circulation for the climate.

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 158. The world's largest positive temperature deviation from zonal mean temperatures lies within the realm of the Nordic Seas, comprising bodies of water variously referred to as the Norwegian Sea, the Iceland Sea, and the Greenland Sea. Its role as a mixing cauldron for waters entering from the North Atlantic and the Arctic Oceans, and its function as a major source of deep and abyss water, make our understanding of the Nordic Seas a crucial element in advancing the knowledge of climate dynamics in the Northern Hemisphere. In this context, its small extent (covering only 0.75% of the area of the world's oceans) and its unique location, which allows for accessibility and detailed exploration, are of special significance. The current book speaks to that significance specifically and also to assessing the region's present and future response to, and influence on, global climate change. It is the first such work since B. G. Hurdle's groundbreaking The Nordic Seas (published in 1986).

Two dozen studies from an April-May 1998 conference in Tallinn, Estonia that were carefully commissioned to provide a snapshot of the state of knowledge about the flow of fresh water from Arctic Ocean as of that weekend, one paper even being written afterward to cover for a presentation that was not ready for publication. Meteorologists, hydrologists, oceanographers, and sea-ice specialists explore such aspects as oceanic freshwater fluxes in the climate system, atmospheric components of the Arctic Ocean freshwater balance and their interannual variability, atmospheric components of the hydrologic budget assessed from Rawinsonde data, moisture transport to the drainage basins relating to significant precipitation events and cyclogenesis, the dynamics of river water inflow, a positive-negative estuarine couple, tracer studies, exchanges of freshwater through the shallow straits of the North American Arctic, modeling the variability of exchanges between the Arctic Ocean and the Nordic seas, and the cycle of fresh water freezing and melting. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The northern North Atlantic is one of the regions most sensitive to past and present global changes. This book integrates the results of an interdisciplinary project studying the properties of the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian Seas and the processes of pelagic and benthic particle formation, particle transport, and deposition in the deep-sea sediments. Ice-related and biogeochemical processes have been investigated to decipher the spatial and temporal variability of the production and fate of organic carbon in this region. Isotopic stratigraphy, microfossil assemblages and paleotemperatures are combined to reconstruct paleoceanographic conditions and to model past climatic changes in the Late Quaternary. The Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian Seas can now be considered one of the best studied subbasins of the world`s oceans.

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 158. The world's largest positive temperature deviation from zonal mean temperatures lies within the realm of the Nordic Seas, comprising bodies of water variously referred to as the Norwegian Sea, the Iceland Sea, and the Greenland Sea. Its role as a mixing cauldron for waters entering from the North Atlantic and the Arctic Oceans, and its function as a major source of deep and abyss water, make our understanding of the Nordic Seas a crucial element in advancing the knowledge of climate dynamics in the Northern Hemisphere. In this context, its small extent (covering only 0.75% of the area of the world's oceans) and its unique location, which allows for accessibility and detailed exploration, are of special significance. The current book speaks to that significance specifically and also to assessing the region's present and future response to, and influence on, global climate change. It is the first such work since B. G. Hurdle's groundbreaking The Nordic Seas (published in 1986).