Hydrodynamics over the northwest Atlantic Ocean

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The Northwest Atlantic Ocean (NWA) and its adjoining eastern Canadian shelf (ECS) are socially and economically very important to Canada. These regions support shipping and transportation, commercial and recreational fisheries, offshore oil and gas exploration and production, marine recreation and tourism, aquaculture, and other economic activities. Physically, these regions lie in the western boundary confluence zone of two large-scale gyre systems: the North Atlantic subpolar gyre and North Atlantic subtropical gyre. The ECS is the most variable area of the North Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The circulation and associated temporal and spatial variability of these regions are influenced by many forcing functions including atmospheric forcing, tides and interactions of three large-scale currents: the Labrador Current, the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Current. These regions are also affected occasionally by extreme weather events such as tropical cyclones and winter storms. The physical conditions (ie, currents, stratification, surface waves and sea ice) over the regions are expected to have substantial changes due to global climate change.