The Nordic Seas are the main connection between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans and, as such, could be of great significance in a possible shutdown of thermohaline circulation.

A line joining the Southernmost point of West Spitzbergen [sic] to the Northern point of Jan Mayen Island, down the West coast of that island to its Southern extreme, thence a Line to the Eastern extreme of Gerpir (67°05′N, 13°30′W) [sic, actually at 65°05′N 13°30′W / 65.083°N 13.500°W / 65.083; -13.500] in Iceland.

While the sea has been known for millennia,[citation needed] the first scientific investigations were carried out in 1876–1878 as part of the Norwegian North-Atlantic Expedition.

[2] The Greenland Sea was a popular hunting ground for the whaling industry for 300 years, until 1911, primarily based in Spitsbergen.

Since the late 1990s, polar biologists reports an increase in the local bowhead whale population and in 2015, arctic scientists discovered a surprising abundance of them in a small area.

These results may be interpreted as an early sign of a beginning recovery for this particular species, that once formed the largest bowhead population in the world, at an estimated 52,000 whales.

[11] The Inuit hunted whales on a non-industrial scale in the Greenland Sea since the 15th century, as evidenced by archaeology.

[1] Silts fill the submarine hollows and gorges; silty sands, gravel, boulders, and other products of erosion coat the shelves and ridges.

[1][2] The progressively colder waters of North Atlantic Current sink in the Arctic Ocean, returning south in the form of cold East Greenland Current, an important part of the Atlantic conveyor belt, which flows along the western part of the sea.

Mixtures of cold, freshwater ice melt and the warm, salty Spitsbergen Current may experience cabbeling, which might contribute to thermohaline circulation.

[23] Around 5 April 1952, a major storm resulted in disappearance of ships with 79 Norwegian seal hunters on board.

It extended eastward from the main East Greenland ice edge in the vicinity of 72–74°N during the winter because of the presence of very cold polar surface water in the Jan Mayen Current, which diverts some water eastward from the East Greenland Current at that latitude.

[29] The salt rejected back into the ocean from this ice formation caused the surface water to become denser and sink, sometimes to great depths (2,500 m (8,200 ft) or more), making this one of the few regions of the ocean where winter convection occurred, which helped drive the entire worldwide system of surface and deep currents known as the thermohaline circulation.

[30] The Greenland Sea is densely inhabited by the organisms that form the base of the oceanic food chain.

Mosses, lichens, and scanty bushes around the coasts serve as food to the deer and musk oxen, which in turn are hunted by the polar bear.

[31][32] This has led the Greenland's minister and provincial council to offer a large number of off-shore concessions to potential hydrocarbon (oil and gas) extraction.

[35][36] ExxonMobil, the largest oil company in the world and with a lot of experience in the Arctic, was also applying for oil extraction rights in the Greenland Sea initially, but pulled out in December 2013 for unexplained reasons, concentrating efforts on shale gas and the American market instead.

They estimate that a full preliminary program with seismic surveys, exploratory drills, and proper safety measures will take about 16 years and an investment of about US$500 million in each concession.