Irminger Current

Also found in: Wikipedia.

Irminger Current

[′ər·miŋ·ər ′kə·rənt]

(oceanography)

An ocean current that is one of the terminal branches of the Gulf Stream system, flowing west off the southern coast of Iceland.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Irminger Current

a warm current of the Atlantic Ocean off the southern coast of Iceland; western branch of the North Atlantic Current. The Irminger Current moves at a rate of about 1 km/hr. The water temperature ranges from 5° to 7°C in winter and 10° to 12°C in summer. The salinity is 34.8–35 parts per thousand. The current was named after the Danish navigator C. Irminger, who was the first to detect and describe it in 1853–54.

Mentioned in ?

References in periodicals archive ?

The warm North Atlantic Current (NAC) can be seen as two major shallow and surface-intensified currents in the Iceland Basin, plus a jet in the western Rockall Trough, and the cooler Irminger Current (IC) on the west side of the Reykjanes Ridge.

In addition to this signature of deep convection, the survey also shows the familiar features of the warm and saline Irminger Current on the eastern and western boundaries of the basin, as well as the cold, dense, and oxygen-rich DSOW carried along the East Greenland slope by the DWBC.

Overturning in the subpolar North Atlantic Program: a new international ocean observing system

In the North Atlantic, the Gulf Stream diverges: The Norwegian Atlantic Current bends east to warm the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, and the smaller North Icelandic Irminger Current veers around the west of Iceland.

A newfound cog in the ocean conveyor

Warm, Atlantic-origin Irminger Current water (mixed with colder local water) often extended from Cape Farewell up the west coast to Fylla Bank or beyond.

(2001) observe that after 1970, positive NAO conditions moved the Atlantic Current eastward so that its offshoot, the Irminger Current, had less effect on West Greenland.

West Greenland's cod-to-shrimp transition: local dimensions of climatic change

At the latitude of Sermilik Fjord, she found the waters of the Irminger Current were very warm--up to 6[degrees]C (nearly 43[degrees]F).

A glacier's pace

If the start of outflow of Arctic Ocean Surface Water through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago dates to the period between 8.6 and 8.5 ka B.P., as we infer from the driftwood and bowhead whale records, the Arctic Ocean outflow through Fram Strait should have slackened at the same time, allowing warming of currents downdrift and a relatively greater contribution of Irminger Current water to the West Greenland Current.

Changes in driftwood delivery to the Canadian arctic archipelago: the hypothesis of postglacial oscillations of the Transpolar Drift

Bower and Valdes knew (from prior satellite measurements of sea surface heights, which indicate currents) that eddies pinch off every two months or so from the Irminger Current, a warm current that hugs the west side of Greenland and encircles the northern part of the Labrador Sea.