The Greenland Sea (Danish: Grønlandshavet) is a body of water that borders Greenland to the west, the Svalbard archipelago to the east, Fram Strait and the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Norwegian Sea and Iceland to the south. The Greenland Sea is often defined as part of the Arctic Ocean, sometimes as part of the Atlantic Ocean. However, definitions of the Arctic Ocean and its seas tend to be imprecise or arbitrary. In general usage, the term "Arctic Ocean" would exclude the Greenland Sea. In oceanographic studies, the Greenland Sea is considered part of the Nordic Seas, along with the Norwegian Sea. In oceanography, the Arctic Ocean and Nordic Seas are often referred to collectively as the "Arctic Mediterranean Sea", a marginal sea of the Atlantic. The sea has Arctic climate with regular northern winds and temperatures rarely rising above 0 °C (32 °F). It previously contained the Odden ice tongue (or Odden) area, which extended eastward from the main East Greenland ice edge in the vicinity of 72–74°N during the winter and acted as a key winter ice formation area in the Arctic. The West Ice forms in winter in the Greenland Sea, north of Iceland, between Greenland and Jan Mayen island. It is a major breeding ground of harp seal and hooded seal that has been used for seal hunting for more than 200 years.
Extent The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Greenland Sea as follows:
On the North. A line joining the Northernmost point of Spitzbergen [sic] [Svalbard] to the Northernmost point of Greenland. On the East. The West coast of West Spitzbergen [sic] [island of Spitsbergen]. On the Southeast. A line joining the Southernmost point of West Spitzbergen [sic] to the Northern point of Jan Mayen Island, down the West coast of that island to its Southern extreme, thence a Line to the Eastern extreme of Gerpir (67°05′N, 13°30′W) [sic, actually at 65°05′N 13°30′W] in Iceland. On the Southwest. A line joining Straumnes (NW extreme of Iceland) to Cape Nansen (68°15′N 29°30′W) in Greenland. On the West. The East and Northeast coast of Greenland between Cape Nansen and the northernmost point.
History While the sea has been known for millennia,, its first scientific explorations were conducted in 1765 and 1766 as part of two Russian government expeditions under the command of Admiral V. Chichagov, who, in search of a passage north of Greenland through the Arctic, carried out oceanographic, geophysical and meteorological observations according to a special program developed by M. Lomonosov, studied currents and ice drift in the northern Greenland Sea, took soil samples, and measured depths in many places. A number of scientific investigations were carried out in 1876–1878 as part of the Norwegian North-Atlantic Expedition. Since then, many countries, mostly Norway, Iceland and Russia have sent scientific expeditions to the area. The complex water current system in the Greenland Sea was described in 1909 by Fridtjof Nansen. The Greenland Sea was a popular hunting ground for the whaling industry for 300 years, until 1911, primarily based in Spitsbergen. At that point, the formerly rich whale population here, was so depleted that the industry was no longer profitable. The remaining whales of the Greenland Sea has been protected ever since, but the populations have not shown any proof of significant regeneration. Since the late 1990s, polar biologists reports an increase in the local bowhead whale population and in 2015, arctic scientists discovered a surprising abundance of them in a small area. These results may be interpreted as an early sign of a beginning recovery for this particular species, that once formed the largest bowhead population in the world, at an estimated 52,000 whales. The Inuit hunted whales on a non-industrial scale in the Greenland Sea since the 15th century, as evidenced by archaeology. The first complete man-powered crossing of the Greenland Sea was achieved in 2017 by rowing expedition, Polar Row led by Fiann Paul.
Geography and geology
The Greenland Sea is bounded to the west by the island of Greenland, and to the south by the Denmark Strait and Iceland. To the southeast, behind the Jan Mayen island (Norway) lies the vast expanse of the Norwegian Sea, of which Greenland Sea may be considered an extension. Across the Fram Strait to the northeast, the sea is delimited by the Svalbard archipelago (Norway). The southern part of the Greenland Sea, roughly the area south of the Jan Mayen Francture Zone or the line Cape Brewster – Jan Mayen is sometimes referred to as Iceland Sea. The bottom of the Greenland Sea is a depression bounded to the south by the underwater Greenland-Iceland ridge and to the east by the Mohns Ridge and Knipovich Ridge (parts of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge). To the west, the bottom rises first slowly, but then rapidly toward the wide Greenland coastal strip. Silts fill the submarine hollows and gorges; silty sands, gravel, boulders, and other products of erosion coat the shelves and ridges. Although the deepest point inside of the sea is 4,846 m (15,899 ft), depths down to 5,570 m (18,270 ft) have been measured in the Molloy Deep of the Fram Strait which connects the sea to the Arctic Ocean on the north. The Greenland ice sheet reaches down to the sea at Jøkel Bay. Major islands of the Greenland Sea include the Svalbard archipelago, Jan Mayen as well as coastal islands off the NE Greenland shores, such as Hovgaard, Ella, Godfred Hansen, Île-de-France, Lynn, Norske, Gamma and Schnauder islands. Of those, only the Svalbard islands are inhabited, and Jan Mayen has only temporal military staff. After the League of Nations gave Norway jurisdiction over the island, in 1921 Norway opened the first meteorological station there, which was a subject of contention between Germany and United Kingdom during World War II. Several radio and meteorological stations operate on the island nowadays.
Hydrology, climate, and ice
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