“O that awful deepdown torrent”

An overview of the deep-water flow from the Nordic Seas through the Faroe-Bank Channel and the Denmark Strait into the North Atlantic proper is given.These fluxes are of considerable importance for the global thermohaline circulation, and it is outlined how they can be modeled on the basis of rotating hydraulic theory for zero-as well as finite-potential-vorticity flow.The hydraulic framework is also shown to be useful for analyzing various dynamic features characterizing the deep-water flow.