Fram Strait

The Fram Strait is the passage between Greenland and Svalbard, located roughly between 77°N and 81°N latitudes and centered on the prime meridian.

A rift valley, caused by sea-floor spreading, runs adjacent and parallel to the Knipovich Ridge.

The use of the name "Fram Strait" for the passage between Spitsbergen and Greenland appears to have come into common use in the oceanographic literature in the 1970s.

[9] Other gateways are the Barents Sea Opening (BSO), the Bering Strait and various small channels in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

On the eastern side, cold water from the Norwegian Sea is observed entering the Arctic below the West Spitsbergen Current.

Warm, salty water is transported northward from the Atlantic by the West Spitsbergen Current in the east of the strait.

A 2019 estimate states that about "80% of the water exchanged between the Arctic ice cap and the world’s oceans passes through the Fram Strait.

"[12] The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) have maintained long term monitoring measurements in Fram Strait to obtain volume- and energy-budgets through this choke point.

The observations also serve to assess the development of the Arctic Ocean as a sink for terrestrial organic carbon.

Fram Strait is located between Svalbard and Greenland . It is the only deep passage between the Arctic and World Oceans.
Main currents in Fram Strait. The West Spitsbergen Current (red) transports warm and saline water northward. The East Greenland Current (blue) flows southward and transports fresh water (both fluid and sea ice ) out of the Arctic Ocean .