Related Task: Mooring section Nordaustlandet

Objective: To complete the DAMOCLES and NABOS mooring array north of Spitsbergen to be able to fully capture the inflow of Atlantic Water to the Arctic.

After passing the Fram Strait, the warm Atlantic inflow to the Arctic Ocean flows counter-clockwise along the rim of the basins. This warm boundary current looses mass and heat to the interior, so that a warm layer of Atlantic Water is found all across the Arctic at about 300-800 meter depth. Through DAMOCLES and the U.S. NABOS experiment, the boundary current will be monitored at about 5 longitudes, the first one being north of Spitsbergen (at 32°E), which, together with the Fram Strait mooring array, is intended to monitor the inflow of heat to the Arctic proper (the Fram Strait alone monitors a substantial amount of recirculation). In DAMOCLES, one mooring will be deployed at this site, and we seek in this proposal to extent the array with one mooring more, for completeness.