Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Johns Hopkins scientist says ozone thinning has changed ocean circulation
http://hub.jhu.edu/2013/01/31/ozone-thinning-and-ocean-circulation[font face=Serif][font size=5]Johns Hopkins scientist says ozone thinning has changed ocean circulation[/font]
Lisa De Nike / January 31, 2013
[font size=3]According to a Johns Hopkins earth scientist, the hole in the Antarctic ozone layer has caused changes in the way that waters in those southern oceans mix—a situation that has the potential to alter the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and eventually could have an impact on global climate change.
In a paper published in this week's issue of the journal Science, [Darryn W. Waugh]( http://www.jhu.edu/~dwaugh1/) and his team show that subtropical intermediate waters in the southern oceans have become "younger" as the upwelling, circumpolar waters have gotten "older"—changes that are consistent with the fact that surface winds have strengthened as the ozone layer has thinned.
"This may sound entirely academic, but believe me, it's not," said Waugh, of the Morton K. Blaustein Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins' Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. "This matters because the southern oceans play an important role in the uptake of heat and carbon dioxide, so any changes in southern ocean circulation have the potential to change the global climate."
Waugh's team used measurements taken from the early 1990s to the mid-to-late 2000s of the amount of a chemical compound known as "chlorofluorocarbon-12," or CFC-12, in the southern oceans. CFC-12 was first produced commercially in the 1930s and its concentration in the atmosphere increased rapidly until the 1990s when it was phased out by the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer. (Prior to the Montreal Protocol, CFC-12 was used in products such as aerosol hairsprays and refrigerants and in air conditioning systems.)
…[/font][/font]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1225411Lisa De Nike / January 31, 2013
[font size=3]According to a Johns Hopkins earth scientist, the hole in the Antarctic ozone layer has caused changes in the way that waters in those southern oceans mix—a situation that has the potential to alter the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and eventually could have an impact on global climate change.
In a paper published in this week's issue of the journal Science, [Darryn W. Waugh]( http://www.jhu.edu/~dwaugh1/) and his team show that subtropical intermediate waters in the southern oceans have become "younger" as the upwelling, circumpolar waters have gotten "older"—changes that are consistent with the fact that surface winds have strengthened as the ozone layer has thinned.
"This may sound entirely academic, but believe me, it's not," said Waugh, of the Morton K. Blaustein Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins' Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. "This matters because the southern oceans play an important role in the uptake of heat and carbon dioxide, so any changes in southern ocean circulation have the potential to change the global climate."
Waugh's team used measurements taken from the early 1990s to the mid-to-late 2000s of the amount of a chemical compound known as "chlorofluorocarbon-12," or CFC-12, in the southern oceans. CFC-12 was first produced commercially in the 1930s and its concentration in the atmosphere increased rapidly until the 1990s when it was phased out by the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer. (Prior to the Montreal Protocol, CFC-12 was used in products such as aerosol hairsprays and refrigerants and in air conditioning systems.)
…[/font][/font]
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
