East Greenland Current

The Greenland current is a ocean current. It is divided into the East Greenland Current and the West Greenland Current.

The East Greenland Current is composed of very different water masses. It begins in the Fram Strait in the northeast of Greenland, where cold and low salinity polar water from the Arctic Ocean flows south and transported large amounts of sea ice. Also through the Fram Strait Atlantic water reaches that previously flowed northward as a warm West Spitsbergen Current and circulates partly by the Arctic Ocean and has cooled in the process, the East Greenland Current. Further south, near Iceland, the warmer waters of the Irmingerstroms mixes added; total of the East Greenland remains a rather cold flow.

After the flow around Cape Farewell at the southern tip of Greenland, the water masses are transported northward as the West Greenland Current, where they hold largely free of ice as a relatively warm current the west coast of Greenland. Then the water flows as a Labrador Current at the American Labrador coast southward again.