Ocean dynamics more complicated than previously thought
SEP 14, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024667
Nature : The motion of vast tracts of water through the oceans is the focus of a study published recently in Nature Geoscience . According to researchers, over the past 50 years, ocean circulation closer to the equator has grown weaker and the water warmer and more saline, while circulation closer to the poles has grown stronger and the water cooler and less saline. It used to be thought that ocean waters moved smoothly like a conveyor belt, but these changes affect both seawater density and, thus, the ocean’s dynamics. “The more we look, the more complicated the ocean is,” says Susan Lozier, an oceanographer at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and lead author of the study. Such studies could help make climate-change models more precise.
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
