The Ocean Conveyor
Ocean Conveyor’s ‘Pump’ Switches Back On
One of the “pumps” that helps drive the ocean’s global circulation suddenly switched on again last winter for the first…
Read MoreWhat Makes the Great Ocean Currents Flow?
By Ari Daniel :: Originally published online December 23, 2008
Read MoreSubmerged Autonomous Launch Platforms
Amy Bower wanted to investigate an elusive and unpredictable phenomenon in a remote ocean. Off the west coast of Greenland,…
Read MoreWill the Ocean Circulation Be Unbroken?
If the world’s climate is going to change, we will see signs in the ocean. The atmosphere and oceans are…
Read MoreInterrogating the ‘Great Ocean Conveyor’
The Greenland-Scotland Ridge looms like a great undersea barrier, stretching from East Greenland to Iceland and the Faroe Islands, and…
Read MoreDeep Ocean Waters Don’t Run Still
The ocean’s circulation is thought to play an important role in our climate by transporting heat from tropical regions toward…
Read MoreOcean Circulation and a Clam Far From Home
In my first year of graduate school, I was stumped by a big question on my final exam in biological…
Read MoreThe Once and Future Circulation of the Ocean
The short history of modern oceanographic observations—less than a century’s worth, really—doesn’t give us a long track record to evaluate…
Read MoreA Sentry at the Atlantic Gateway
Here’s an easy recipe to change Earth’s climate: Just add more fresh water to the North Atlantic Ocean. In this…
Read MoreThe Ocean Conveyor
A global system of currents, often called the Ocean Conveyor, carries warm surface waters from the tropics northward. At high…
Read MoreFine-tuning the Steps in the Intricate Climate Change Dance
New scientific findings are strengthening the case that the oceans and climate are linked in an intricate dance, and that…
Read MoreFathoming the Ocean Without Ever Going to Sea
“The general circulation of the ocean is a massive and majestic phenomenon,” says WHOI physical oceanographer Joe Pedlosky. In 2005, Pedlosky was awarded the prestigious Sverdrup Gold Medal of the American Meteorological Society for his theories explaining the inner workings of the ocean and the atmosphere. Not bad for an oceanographer who has never gone on a research cruise.
Read MoreRate of Ocean Circulation Directly Linked to Abrupt Climate Change in North Atlantic Region
A new study strengthens evidence that the oceans and climate are linked in an intricate dance, and that rapid climate change may be related to how vigorously ocean currents transport heat from low to high latitudes.
Read MoreHow the Isthmus of Panama Put Ice in the Arctic
The long lag time has always puzzled scientists: Why did Antarctica become covered by massive ice sheets 34 million years ago, while the Arctic Ocean acquired its ice cap only about 3 million year ago?
Read MoreNew Study Reports Large-scale Salinity Changes in the Oceans
Tropical ocean waters have become dramatically saltier over the past 40 years, while oceans closer to Earth’s poles have become fresher, scientists reported today in the journal Nature. Earth’s warming surface may be intensifying evaporation over oceans in the low latitudes–raising salinity concentrations there–and transporting more fresh water vapor via the atmosphere toward Earth’s poles.
Read MoreAdventure in the Labrador Sea
The sound of the general alarm bell reverberated through the ship. At 2:30 AM, this couldn’t be a drill. Even more puzzling, we were still dockside in Halifax, four hours from our scheduled departure for the Labrador Sea.
Read MoreNew Data on Deep Sea Turbulence Shed Light on Vertical Mixing
The global thermohaline circulation is basically a wholesale vertical overturning of the sea, driven by heating and cooling, precipitation and evaporation.
Read MoreLabrador Sea Water Carries Northern Climate Signal South
Changes in wind strength, humidity, and temperature over the ocean affect rates of evaporation, precipitation, and heat transfer between ocean and air. Long-term atmospheric climate change signals are imprinted onto the sea surface layer, a thin skin atop an enormous reservoirA? and subsequently communicated to the deeper water masses. Labrador Sea Water is a subpolar water mass shaped by air-sea exchanges in the North Atlantic. It is a major contributor to the deep water of the Atlantic, and changes of conditions in its formation area can be read several years later at mid-depths in the subtropics. Mapping these changes through time is helping us to understand the causes of significant warming and cooling patterns we have observed at these depths in the North Atlantic and links the subtropical deep signals back to the subpolar sea surface conditions.
Read MoreNorth Atlantic’s Transformation Pipeline Chills and Redistributes Subtropical Water
Warm and salty waters from the upper part of the South Atlantic flow northward across the equator and then progress through the tropical and subtropical North Atlantic to reach high latitudes. Beginning with the intense northward flow of the Gulf Stream off the East Coast of the United States, these waters are exposed to vigorous cooling, liberating considerable oceanic heat to the atmosphere. This is the first stage of “warm water transformation within the North Atlantic, a process that culminates in the high latitude production of cold and fresh waters that return to the South Atlantic in deep reaching currents beneath the warm waters of the subtropics and tropics.
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