Deep Ocean Current May Slow Due to Climate Change, Penn Research Finds

[adirondacker]

"Far beneath the surface of the ocean, deep currents act as conveyer belts, channeling heat, carbon, oxygen and nutrients around the globe.

A new study by the University of Pennsylvania’s Irina Marinov and Raffaele Bernardello and colleagues from McGill University has found that recent climate change may be acting to slow down one of these conveyer belts, with potentially serious consequences for the future of the planet’s climate.

“Our observations are showing us that there is less formation of these deep waters near Antarctica,” Marinov said. “This is worrisome because, if this is the case, we’re likely going to see less uptake of human produced, or anthropogenic, heat and carbon dioxide by the ocean, making this a positive feedback loop for climate change.”

Marinov is an assistant professor in Penn's School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Earth and Environmental Science, while Bernardello was a postdoctoral investigator in the same department and has just moved to the National Oceanography Centre in the United Kingdom. They collaborated with Casimir de Lavergne, Jaime B. Palter and Eric D. Galbraith of McGill University on the study, which was published in Nature Climate Change."

http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/news/deep-ocean-current-may-slow-due-climate-change-penn-research-finds

[Bigmack]

1. And the melting of the Greenland ice sheet

which is WELL underway, will dump TONS of fresh water into the north Atlantic, probably causing the the salty thermohaline current to sink below the added freshwater WAY sooner than it does now….ironically cooling Europe. Homodumbians we are indeed…. Ms Bigmack

[Swede Atlanta]

2. One prediction is the Gulf Stream that moves warm waters out of the Caribbean along the

eastern U.S. seaboard and onto western europe will slow or cease to flow at all.

This will result in dramatically colder winters and eventually to a mini ice age.

[Mojorabbit]

3. k&r. nt