The Svinøy Section (SS) cuts through the Atlantic inflow (AI) just to the north of the Scotland-Iceland Ridge and is as such a suitable place to undertake a comprehensive monitoring of the NwAC as an up-stream reference for the Arctic Ocean. The applicability of the SS as a prediction area for downstream events is demonstrated in a recent paper by Polyakov et al. (2005), who traced warm events observed in SS to higher latitude regions with a 1.5 year timelag to the Fram Strait and 4.5-5 years to reach the Laptev Sea in the Arctic.
The SS has been run as a standard hydrographic section by the Institute of Marine Research (IMR) since 1955, and since 1995 with a moored array of current meters in the eastern branch of the NwAC by the Geophysical Institute; to date resulting in an11-year continuous time series.
