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Current Affair

April 28, 2012

A 2011 expedition led by WHOI physical oceanographer Bob Pickart confirmed the existence of a previously unknown ocean current called the North Icelandic Jet. It feeds cold, dense water into the Deep Western Boundary Current, helping to drive the lower limb of the Ocean Conveyor, the global ocean circulation system that regulates Earth’s climate. The North Icelandic Jet forms when the warm surface of the North Icelandic Irminger Current sheds eddies that cool and disperse within the Iceland Sea Gyre. Cold, dense waters leak out to form the North Icelandic Jet. (Illustration by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)