Faroe Shetland Canal
The Faroe-Shetland Canal is a trench in the Northern European Sea between Shetland and the Faroe Islands .
The trench is up to 1,500 meters deep, but the Wyville-Thomson Ridge, which rises to 620 meters, separates it from the Rockall trough in the open Atlantic. Most of the warm and salty North Atlantic Current flows through the rift, which is 25 kilometers wide at its narrowest point, and reaches the European Arctic Ocean and, on its way, into the Greenland Sea . About two cubic miles of warm water flow into the Arctic Ocean every hour, although there can be significant differences depending on the season and year. Reduced inputs can be determined during the next harvest in Norway, just as the ice formation in the Barents Sea two to three years later correlates directly with the flow on the Shetland-Faroe Canal.
A smaller part of the cold deep water also flows back into the Atlantic through the Faroe Shetland Canal, but the deep Faroe Bank Canal and the Denmark Strait play a larger role here. The Shetland-Faroe Canal contributes just as significantly to the comparatively warm climate of Northern Europe as it does to the thermohaline circulation .
Remarks
- ↑ CEP Brooks: Climate Through the Ages , Read Books, 2007, ISBN 1406759171 , p. 73.
- ^ Hendrik Mattheus van Aken: The Oceanic Thermohaline Circulation: An Introduction , Springer, 2007, ISBN 0387366377 , pp. 132-133.