Lincoln Sea (; ) is a body of water in the Arctic Ocean, stretching from Cape Columbia, Canada, in the west to Cape Morris Jesup, Greenland, in the east. The northern limit is defined as the great circle line between those two headlands. It is covered with sea ice throughout the year, the thickest sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, which can be up to thick. Water depths range from to . Water and ice from Lincoln Sea empty into Robeson Channel, the northernmost part of Nares Strait, most of the time. The sea was named after Robert Todd Lincoln, then United States Secretary of War, on Adolphus W. Greely's 1881–1884 Arctic expedition into Lady Franklin Bay. Alert, the northernmost station of Canada, is the only populated place on the shore of Lincoln Sea. The body of water to the east of Lincoln Sea (east of Cape Morris Jesup) is the Wandel Sea. Currents and Oceanic Circulation Because of the severe ice conditions that last year-round, oceanographic measurements of the Lincoln Sea have been all but impossible. Before the 1980s, only low-flying aircraft samplings and ground observations from ice islands could be attempted; these did not stray far from the shores of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago due to the harsh environment. Between 1989 and 1994, the field experiments in Project Spinnaker were underway, implementing instrumentation that captured temperature and salinity profiles well into the heart of the Lincoln Sea. Taken just east of where the North American continent intersects the Lomonosov Ridge, these observations revealed the oceanographic features and current formations within and surrounding the Lincoln Sea. Along the continental margins of the Arctic Ocean basin, narrow boundary currents are hypothesized to house intense large-scale advection that is critical in the general circulation of Arctic waters. From the Bering Strait, Pacific Ocean waters flow counterclockwise (cyclonically) along the northern shores of Canada, passing through the Lincoln Sea. Atlantic Ocean waters cyclonically flow in from and return to the Eurasian basin along the Greenland Sea continental slope. The waters of these basins converge at the Lincoln Sea, creating unique vertical temperature and salinity profiles here. Measurements detail that both the Pacific and Eurasian Ocean water profiles are clearly offset from one another, an important facet of the hydrography of the Lincoln Sea. The Lincoln Sea has been found to contain water with three distinct properties. The first concerns the