Experiments Reveal How Heat Is Mixed into Cold Dense Water in the Abyssal Ocean
MAR 01, 2000
By tracing the diffusion of a dye, researchers have found suggestive evidence that the moon promotes the flow of heat in the deep ocean.
DOI: 10.1063/1.883015
If the world’s oceans relied only on molecular diffusion and smooth laminar flow to spread the Sun’s heat, they’d consist of a thin Sun‐warmed layer atop a mass of icy water. But other transport mechanisms are at work. In the North Atlantic, for instance, wind‐driven currents push warm water from the Caribbean to the Arctic, where it cools, sinks, and flows back southward. And throughout its journey, the seawater is swirled and agitated by continent‐sized gyres and centimeter‐sized turbulent eddies.
© 2000. American Institute of Physics
