Currents
Drift station and buoy observation and monitoring have revealed two major ice circulation systems in the Arctic Ocean - the east to west Transpolar Drift in the Eurasian Arctic (Russian Siberia) and the clockwise Beaufort Gyre north of Alaska and Canada.
The Beaufort Gyre ("rotating pattern") slowly swirls the surface waters of the Arctic basin, turning the Polar Ice Cap along with it. It makes one complete rotation about every 4 years.
The Transpolar Drift carries water and ice from Siberia, across the Pole and down the east coast of Greenland, where it joins the East Greenland current. This current is caused by the inflow from Siberian rivers, and a westerly wind that pushes Arctic surface water eastward into the Atlantic. It is strong due to the number of rivers that flow into the Arctic Sea, the low rate of evaporation, and the land and submarine ridges surrounding the ocean. One of the latest estimates of the current speed comes from Bersch (1995), who calculated geostrophic velocities from CTD measurements and referenced them to velocities recorded in the upper 500 m and found maximum speeds of 20-30 cm s-1.
Arctic