We work with
global ocean circulation models to understand issues like the thermal expansion of ocean waters due to global warming or the effect of changing ocean currents on regional sea levels.
At a global scale, the increased melting of the ice sheet contributes to rising sea level and may impact
global ocean circulation patterns through the so - called «thermohaline circulation'that sustains among others, the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe warm.
The disappearance of the polar ice cap could also
affect global ocean circulation patterns, and its melting has already imperiled native species such as the polar bear.
One can not develop a useful model of what
drives global ocean circulation, he says, without understanding what is happening at the scale of a cubic centimeter.
A new study has found that turbulent mixing in the deep waters of the Southern Ocean, which has a profound effect
on global ocean circulation and climate, varies with the strength of surface eddies — the ocean equivalent of storms in the atmosphere — and possibly also wind speeds.
In the paper Gray makes many extravagant claims about how supposed changes in the THC accounted for various 20th century climate changes («I judge our
present global ocean circulation conditions to be similar to that of the period of the early 1940s when the globe had shown great warming since 1910, and there was concern as to whether this 1910 - 1940 global warming would continue.
The closing of the Central American Seaway intensified the Gulf Stream, the upper limb of a conveyor -
like global ocean circulation called the Ocean Conveyor.
In addition, the authors provide compelling evidence of both the important coupling of ocean and atmosphere processes and the strong communication, of effects of climatic change, between the waters of the Northern and Southern hemisphere
through global ocean circulation.»
A growing body of evidence suggests that the formation of the Isthmus of Panama partitioned the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and fundamentally
changed global ocean circulation.
«These waters are thought to be the underpinning of the large -
scale global ocean circulation,» said Macdonald, a WHOI senior research specialist and the study's co-author.
Its number - crunching capabilities are used to study ship hydrodynamics and air turbulence, to probe industrial combustion turbines to create cleaner engines, and to
understand global ocean circulation, as well as for earthquake simulations and aircraft noise - reduction modeling.
Developing advanced modeling and assimilation procedures for estimating the evolving global ocean circulation
«Greenland ice takes on a new role in the climate change story, not just indicating change and contributing to sea level rise, but possibly playing an important role in destabilizing regional if
not global ocean circulation that naturally exchanges heat north - south,» said Jason Box of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, and a study co-author, in an email to Mashable.
This process (also called «thermohaline circulation») has received less attention in the North Pacific than in the North Atlantic, where the formation of North Atlantic Deep Water is a powerful driver
of global ocean circulation and climate.
William M. Gray wrote... I judge our
present global ocean circulation to be similar to that of the period of the early 1940s when the globe had shown great warming since 1910, and there was concern as to whether this 1910 - 1940 global warming would continue.
This would shut down
a global ocean circulation system that is driven by dense, salty water falling to the bottom of the north Atlantic and that ultimately produces the Gulf Stream.
Scientists from the University of South Florida, along with colleagues in Canada and the Netherlands, have determined that the influx of fresh water from the Greenland ice sheet is «freshening» the North Atlantic Ocean and could disrupt the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), an important component of
global ocean circulation that could have a global effect.
«Melting Greenland ice sheet may affect
global ocean circulation, future climate: University of South Florida and international scientists find influx of freshwater could disrupt the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, an important component of global ocean circulation.»
Climatologists have suggested that the winds, known as the Greenland tip jet, could be a key force in driving the world's climate and
the global ocean circulation by pushing cold, dense water to the ocean floor and triggering the thermohaline circulation.
The study reveals the importance of long - term observations at key locations of
the global ocean circulation.
The temperature and salinity of seawater are key drivers for
the global ocean circulation system.
The researchers then worked the experimental data into
a global ocean circulation model to see how multiple species, competing with each other, responded to rising acidity levels.
The AMOC is part of
a global ocean circulation system that carries heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic.
Adrift: tracking
the global ocean circulation.
How close are we to reaching the threshold for a «rewriting» of
global ocean circulation?
Rignot: Ice sheet melt may influence the formation of Antarctic bottom water, which participates in
the global ocean circulation, but this effect should take place over centuries, it is unlikely to be felt in the coming century.
Over multi-millennial time scales, orbital forcing also exerts a major influence on key climate systems such as the Earth's major monsoons,
global ocean circulation and the greenhouse gas content of the atmosphere.
The researchers used the results of 33 climate - change models and examined factors ranging from how much ice Greenland and Antarctica could lose to how
the global ocean circulation could change.