New ocean research shows that Antarctica’s meltwater is slowing deep ocean currents that directly influence Earth’s climate.
        The world’s oceans may appear fairly uniform when viewed from the deck of a ship or plane, but there’s a lot going on beneath the surface. Huge rivers carry heat from the tropics to the Arctic and Antarctica, where the water cools and then flows again towards the equator. People living on the east coast of North America and Europe are familiar with the Gulf Stream. Without it, these places would not be uninhabitable, but they would be much colder than they are now.
        This animation shows the path of the global pipeline. Blue arrows indicate the path of deep, cold, dense water flow. Red arrows indicate the path of warmer, less dense surface waters. It is estimated that a “packet” of water can take 1,000 years to complete its journey through the global conveyor belt. Image source: NOAA
        Ocean currents are, so to speak, the cooling system of a car. If anything disrupts the normal flow of coolant, something bad could happen to your engine. The same thing happens on Earth if ocean currents are disrupted. Not only do they help regulate the Earth’s land temperature, but they also provide important nutrients needed for marine life. Above is a diagram provided by NOAA that explains how ocean currents work. Below is NOAA’s verbal explanation.
       ”The Thermohaline Circulation drives a global system of ocean currents called the Global Conveyor. The conveyor belt begins at the ocean surface near the poles of the North Atlantic. Here the water becomes cooler due to Arctic temperatures. It also becomes saltier because when sea ice forms, salt does not freeze and remains in the surrounding water. Because of the added salt, the cold water becomes denser and sinks to the ocean floor. Influxes of surface water replace the sinking water, creating currents.
        “This deep water moves south, between continents, across the equator and all the way to the ends of Africa and South America. Ocean currents flow around the edges of Antarctica, where the water cools again and sinks, as in the North Atlantic. And so it is, the conveyor belt is “charged.” Having moved around Antarctica, two parts separate from the conveyor belt and turn north. One part enters the Indian Ocean, and the other part to the Pacific Ocean.
        “As we move north toward the equator, the two parts break apart, warm up, and become less dense as they rise to the surface. They then return south and west to the South Atlantic and eventually to the North Atlantic, where the cycle begins again.
        “Conveyor belts move much slower (a few centimeters per second) than wind or tidal currents (tens to hundreds of centimeters per second). It is estimated that any cubic meter of water will take about 1000 years to complete its journey around the globe. The Journey of a Conveyor Belt In addition, the conveyor belt transports large quantities of water – more than 100 times the flow of the Amazon River.
        “Conveyor belts are also an important part of the cycling of nutrients and carbon dioxide in the world’s oceans. Warm surface waters are depleted in nutrients and carbon dioxide, but they are enriched again as they pass through the conveyor belt as deep layers or substrate. The basis of the world food chain. Relying on cool, nutrient-rich waters that support the growth of algae and kelp.”
        A new study published March 29 in the journal Nature shows that as Antarctica warms, water from melting glaciers could slow these giant ocean currents by 40 percent by 2050. The result will be huge changes in the Earth’s climate that don’t actually exist. This is well understood, but could lead to an acceleration of droughts, floods and sea level rise. Research shows that slowing ocean currents could change the world’s climate for centuries. This, in turn, could have a range of consequences, including faster sea level rise, changing weather patterns and the potential for hungry marine life without access to important sources of nutrients.
        Professor Matt England, from the University of New South Wales’ Center for Climate Change Research and co-author of the study published in the journal Nature, said the entire deep ocean current was on its current trajectory towards collapse. “In the past, it took more than 1,000 years or so for these cycles to change, but now it only takes a few decades. This is happening much faster than we thought, these cycles are slowing down. We’re talking about possible long-term extinction. iconic water masses.” “
        The slowing of deep ocean currents is due to the amount of water sinking to the ocean floor and then flowing north. Dr Qian Li, formerly of the University of New South Wales and now of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the lead author of the study, which was coordinated by England. The economic downturn “will profoundly alter the ocean’s response to heat, freshwater, oxygen, carbon and nutrients, with implications for the world’s entire oceans for centuries to come,” the authors write. One effect could be a fundamental change in rainfall – Some places get too much rain and others get too little.
        “We don’t want to create self-reinforcing mechanisms in these places,” Lee said, adding that the slowdown has effectively stagnated the deep ocean, depriving it of oxygen. When sea creatures die, they add nutrients to the water that sinks to the ocean floor and circulates throughout the world’s oceans. These nutrients return during upwelling and serve as food for phytoplankton. This is the base of the marine food chain.
        Dr Steve Rintoul, an oceanographer and Southern Ocean expert at the Australian Government’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, said as deep-sea circulation slows, fewer nutrients will return to the upper ocean, impacting phytoplankton production. century.
        “Once the overturning circulation slows, we can only restart it by stopping the release of meltwater around Antarctica, which means we need a cooler climate and then have to wait for it to resume. Our continued high greenhouse gas emissions The longer we wait, the more we commit to making even more changes. Looking back 20 years ago, we thought the deep ocean hadn’t changed much. He was too far away to react. But observations and models suggest otherwise.”
        Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, an oceanographer and head of Earth system analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said the new study shows that “the climate around Antarctica is likely to weaken further in the coming decades.” The UN’s main climate report has “significant and long-standing shortcomings” because it does not reflect how meltwater is affecting the deep ocean. “The melting water dilutes the salt content in these areas of the ocean, making the water less dense so it doesn’t have enough weight to sink and push out the water already there.”
        As average global temperatures continue to rise, there is a link between slowing ocean currents and the potential need for geoengineering to cool the planet. Both will have highly unpredictable consequences that could have devastating consequences on the lives of people in many parts of the world.
        The solution, of course, is to radically reduce carbon dioxide and methane emissions, but world leaders have been slow to aggressively address these issues because doing so would lead to a backlash from fossil fuel suppliers and anger from consumers who rely on fossil fuels. The fuel fuels cars, heats homes and powers the Internet.
        If the United States were serious about making consumers pay for the losses caused by burning fossil fuels, the cost of electricity from coal-fired power plants would double or triple, and the price of gasoline would exceed $10 a gallon. If any of the above happens, the vast majority of voters will scream and vote for candidates who promise to bring back the good old days. In other words, we will likely continue to move toward an uncertain future, and our children and grandchildren will suffer the consequences of our failure to act in any meaningful way.
        Professor Rahmstorff said another worrying aspect of slowing ocean currents caused by increasing amounts of meltwater in Antarctica is that slowing deep ocean currents could also affect the amount of carbon dioxide that can be stored in the deep ocean. We can help mitigate this situation by reducing carbon and methane emissions, but there is little evidence that the political will to do so exists.
        Steve writes about the intersection of technology and sustainability from his home in Florida or wherever the force may take him. He was proud of being “woke” and didn’t care why the glass broke. He firmly believes in the words of Socrates, spoken 3,000 years ago: “The secret of change is to concentrate all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
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