The North Icelandic Jet is a deep-reaching current that flows along the

continental slope A continental margin is the outer edge of continental crust abutting oceanic crust under coastal waters. It is one of the three major zones of the ocean floor, the other two being deep-ocean basins and mid-ocean ridges. The continental margin ...

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

. The North Icelandic Jet advects overflow water into the

Denmark Strait The Denmark Strait () or Greenland Strait ( , 'Greenland Sound') is an oceanic strait between Greenland to its northwest and Iceland to its southeast. The Norwegian island of Jan Mayen lies northeast of the strait. Geography The strait connect ...

and constitutes a pathway that is distinct from the

East Greenland Current The East Greenland Current (EGC) is a cold, low- salinity current that extends from Fram Strait (~80N) to Cape Farewell (~60N). The current is located off the eastern coast of Greenland along the Greenland continental margin. The current cuts t ...

. It is a cold current that runs west across the top of Iceland, then southwest between Greenland and Iceland at a depth of about 600 metres (almost 2,000 feet). The North Icelandic Jet is deep and narrow (about 12 mile wide) and can carry more than a million cubic meters of water per second. It was not discovered until 2004.

References

Kjetil Våge, Robert S. Pickart, Michael A. Spall, Héðinn Valdimarsson, Steingrímur Jónsson, Daniel J. Torres, Svein Østerhus & Tor Eldevik, Significant role of the North Icelandic Jet in the formation of Denmark Strait overflow water, Nature Geoscience 4, 723–727 (2011) doi:10.1038/ngeo1234

Steingrimur Jonsson and Hedinn Valdimarsson, A new path for the Denmark Strait overflow water from the Iceland, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 31, L03305, doi:10.1029/2003GL019214

Stefanie Semper, Kjetil Våge, Robert S. Pickart, Héðinn Valdimarsson, Daniel J. Torres & Steingrímur Jónsson, The emergence of the North Icelandic Jet and its evolution from Northeast Iceland to Denmark Strait, Journal of Physical Oceanography, 49, 2499-2521, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0088.1

Oceanography Currents of the Arctic Ocean {{Marine-geo-stub