The South Icelandic Current

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The circulation of Icelandic waters is simulated by the three-dimensional ocean model CODE. The high resolution simulation reveals several new insights into the regional oceanography. Thus, the northward transport of Atlantic Water over the Icelandic shelf, from the Irminger Sea and the Iceland Basin into the Nordic Seas, is simulated as a symmetrical system of two currents, with the established North Icelandic Irminger Current (NIIC) over the north-western and northern shelf, and a hitherto unnamed current over the southern and south-eastern shelf, denoted here as South Icelandic Current (SIC). Both currents are driven by barotropic pressure gradients induced by a sea level slope across the Greenland-Scotland Ridge. Being an upstream precursor of the Faroe Current (FC) the SIC is simulated to be an energetic flow with a mean volume flux of around 2 Sv south-east of Iceland which clearly differs from the wider, sluggish flow of the North Atlantic Drift east of it. With an additional numerical experiment the NIIC/SIC structure is reproduced by an idealised model setup which illuminates its basic dynamics.