Joint Skagerrak Expedition

Background to the Expedition

The ICES Joint Skagerrak Expedition in 1966 was developed by an ad hoc Working Group of the Hydrographical (sic) Committee, chaired by Dr G Tomczak (FRG).

The case for the Expedition was made on the premiss that "in order to complete our knowledge of the hydrography of the Skagerrak as a transition zone between the Baltic and the North Sea, which is assumed to be of great interest to the fisheries and to the marine biology in general, and to gather more information about the deep currents in the Norwegian Deep, member countries of ICES should execute a new international undertaking."

The expedition covered the period from June 20th to July 15th 1966. Germany (FRG), Finland, Norway, UK (Scotland) and Sweden took part. The investigations were concerned with hydro-chemical measurements for a study of the distribution of the different water-bodies in the Skagerrak (Atlantic, Bank and Baltic waters) and with current measurements for a representation of the current systems. Measurements of temperature, salinity, oxygen and phosphate - in some cases also pH and silicate - were made of 21 sections at 233 stations; most of them were repeated twice at always the same time by "Skagerak", "G.O. Sars" and "Meteor". Current Measuremenst were made at 7 anchor stations, 8 drifting stations, and by 17 self-recording current meters laid out over periods up to 20 days. In addition, some 100 vertical soundings of temperature and chlorinity (bathysonde), temperature and salinity (membrane salinometer), temperature (bathythermograph) and transparency were made. Continuous recordings of the surface-layer temperature between 0 and 70m by means of the "Delphin" towing gear covered 36 profiles of nearly 1200 nm total length.

Data from the Expedition were published in 1969 as "Joint Skagerrak Expedition 1966", Vols 1-4, in the series "ICES Oceanographic Data Lists". In 1970, the "Joint Skagerrak Expedition 1966" Vol 5, Atlas was published in the same series. The atlas volume contains:

• Charts showing the position of sections and stations;
• 175 sections and charts showing the distribution of physical and chemical parameters i 8 selected sections and 6 levels during the simultaneous runs on 20-22 June, 29 June - 2 July and 5-9 July;
• 11 Figures showing the temperature distribution in selected sections through the top layer of the Skagerrak waters as a result of continuous records by the "Delphin", the towing gear used by "Gauss"

Joint Skagerrak Expedition Data held at the ICES Data Centre

The hydro-chemistry data are available as a zip archive containing the data in ICES Oceanographic Format, and as a Comma-separated-value (CSV) file.

The following table summarises the Joint Skagerrak Expedition cruises, and indicates the availability of station data at ICES: