The northern limb of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation and its transport of heat and salt towards the Arctic strongly modulate the climate of the Northern Hemisphere. The presence of warm surface waters prevents ice formation in parts of the Arctic Mediterranean, and ocean heat is directly available for sea-ice melt, while salt transport may be critical for the stability of the exchanges. Through these mechanisms, ocean he...

To examine processes controlling the entrainment of ambient water into the Denmark Strait overflow (DSO) plume/gravity current, measurements of turbulent dissipation rate were carried out by a quasi-free-falling (tethered) microstructure profiler (MSP). The MSP was specifically designed to collect data on dissipation-scale turbulence and fine thermohaline stratification in an ocean layer located as deep as 3500 m. The task was...

The entrainment of buoyant ambient water into the overflow plume of Denmark Strait and the associated downstream warming of the plume are estimated using time series of currents and temperature from moored instrumentation and classical hydrographic data. Warming rates are highest (0.4–0.5 K/100 km) within the first 200 km of the sill, and decrease to 0.05–0.1 K/100 km further downstream. Stirring by mesoscale eddies causes lat...