Baffin Bay
Baffin Bay lies between Greenland and Baffin Island, and is really the extreme northwest arm of the Atlantic. The surface ices over each winter, but warmer water from the Labrador Sea flows up its eastern shore, keeping parts of the adjacent Greenland coast ice-free. Water returns south along the western shore as the cold Labrador Current, often carrying icebergs into the North Atlantic. Seals have long been hunted in the area. Large numbers were killed each year as recently as the 1980s, but commercial hunting of marine mammals is now controlled.
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- Area 689,000 square km (266,000 square miles)
- Maximum Depth 2,100m (6,900ft)
- Inflows Arctic Basin, Labrador Sea, glaciers of West Greenland
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