An interesting and important discovery was made in the 17th century by the naval expedition of William Baffin. The sea, discovered by researchers, was officially named in honor of the conqueror of the northern waters. William Baffin and Robert Baylot carefully described their find. Somewhat later, W. Baffin undertook four more expeditions to the reservoir he discovered. Where is the Baffin Sea and what it is, now let's try to figure it out.
A bit of history
The first mention of the harsh and mysterious sea appeared in the 16th century. They were left by a British researcher D. Davis in 1585. But the name of the reservoir was given in 1616 after the expedition of another British navigator Baffin. The sea, as already mentioned, bears this name because it not only visited the indicated latitudes, but carried out a whole scientific study, became the discoverer of the Baffin Island, and proved that the Northwest Passage through the Hudson Bay, which John Davis's expedition sought, does not exist.
In 1818, another Englishman, John Ross, continued the development of the northwestern path. He followed the path of Baffin. The sea, island and western coast of Greenland were re-described during a new expedition. In addition, adjustments were made to the geographical maps.
Entertaining geography
The inaccessible Baffin Sea is still poorly understood. Its shores are considered sparsely populated, since the population density here is the lowest on the planet. To understand why this is so, one must answer a simple question: why is the Baffin Sea so severe, to which ocean does this body of water belong?
We are talking about the marginal sea in the North Atlantic Ocean. Such reservoirs are also called inland seas. The boundaries of the sea are defined by the island of Baffin Island, the southwestern coast of Greenland and the eastern coast of the Arctic archipelago.
The inland water body described by the Baffin expedition is a sea with an area of 630 thousand km². Its average depth is almost 860 m. But the maximum depth is more than 2400 m. The approximate length along the coasts from north to south is about 1100 km.
The shores that wash the Baffin Sea are completely rugged by mountains, bays and fjords. In addition, glaciers come close to them.
Straits and currents
The Baffin Sea is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by the Davis Strait and the Labrador Sea. The Ners Strait leads to the Arctic Ocean. There are two noticeable currents in the sea: Canadian and Greenland.
Due to the Greenland-Canadian underwater elevation (threshold), warm water masses from the Atlantic do not fall into the Baffin Sea. This is the main reason that one of the seas of the Atlantic Ocean is so cold and is completely covered with a layer of ice in winter.
Climate and hydrology
The Baffin Sea is located in the arctic climate zone. Storms and low temperatures are often observed here. So, in winter there can be 20-28 ° of frost, and in summer only 7 ° of heat. Because of this, the water temperature in the winter is only - 1 ° C, but in summer it is not higher than +5 ° C.
The salinity of the Baffin Sea is 30-32 ppm, but in the deep layers it is slightly higher and more than 34 ppm.
In especially severe winters, the surface of the sea freezes completely, in ordinary ones - by 80%. In summer, ice blocks and flat ice floes often swim in the waters.
In the sea, surprisingly high tides are observed. Their minimum height is 4 meters, maximum 9 meters. North-west prevail winds.
The area is seismically active. Registration has been going on since 1933, the maximum earthquakes were 6 points. The latter, above 5 points, happened in 2010.
