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Thermohaline circulation (THC) is a part of the large-scale ocean circulation that is driven by global density gradients created by surface heat and freshwater fluxes. The adjective thermohaline derives from thermo- referring to temperature and -haline referring to salt content, factors which together determine the density of sea water. Wind-driven surface currents travel polewards from the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, cooling en route, and eventually sinking at high latitudes. This dense water then flows into the ocean basins. While the bulk of it upwells in the Southern Ocean, the oldest waters upwell in the North Pacific. Extensive mixing therefore takes place between the ocean basins, reducing differences between them and making the Earth's oceans a global system. The water in these circuits transport both energy and mass around the globe. As such, the state of the circulation has a large impact on the climate of the Earth.
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The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately 14,060,000 km2 (5,430,000 sq mi) and is known as one of the coldest of oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, although some oceanographers call it the Arctic Mediterranean Sea. It has also been described as an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It is also seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing World Ocean.
The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the world ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of 20,327,000 km2 (7,848,000 sq mi), it is regarded as the second-smallest of the five principal oceanic divisions: smaller than the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans but larger than the Arctic Ocean.
The Cosmonauts Sea was a proposed sea name as part of the Southern Ocean, off the Prince Olav Coast and Enderby Land, Antarctica, between about 30°E and 50°E. It would have an area of 699,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi). It would be bordered by two other proposals from a 2002 International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) draft, a Cooperation Sea to the east and a Riiser-Larsen Sea to the west.
Brine rejection is a process that occurs when salty water freezes. The salts do not fit in the crystal structure of water ice, so the salt is expelled.
Antarctic sea ice is the sea ice of the Southern Ocean. It extends from the far north in the winter and retreats to almost the coastline every summer. Sea ice is frozen seawater that is usually less than a few meters thick. This is the opposite of ice shelves, which are formed by glaciers; they float in the sea, and are up to a kilometre thick. There are two subdivisions of sea ice: fast ice, which are attached to land; and ice floes, which are not.
Open ocean convection is a process in which the mesoscale ocean circulation and large, strong winds mix layers of water at different depths. Fresher water lying over the saltier or warmer over the colder leads to the stratification of water, or its separation into layers. Strong winds cause evaporation, so the ocean surface cools, weakening the stratification. As a result, the surface waters are overturned and sink while the "warmer" waters rise to the surface, starting the process of convection. This process has a crucial role in the formation of both bottom and intermediate water and in the large-scale thermohaline circulation, which largely determines global climate. It is also an important phenomena that controls the intensity of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).
References
- ↑ David Holland (5 May 2003). "Background - Weddell Polynya". New York University. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
- ↑ D M Holland (1 June 2001). "Explaining the Weddell Polynya--a large ocean eddy shed at Maud Rise". Science. 292 (5522): 1697–700. Bibcode:2001Sci...292.1697H. doi:10.1126/science.1059322. PMID 11387470. S2CID 39712681.
- ↑ Cheon, Woo Geun; Gordon, Arnold L. (6 May 2019). "Open-ocean polynyas and deep convection in the Southern Ocean". Scientific Reports. 9 (1): 6935. Bibcode:2019NatSR...9.6935C. doi:10.1038/s41598-019-43466-2. PMC 6502842 . PMID 31061471.
- ↑ "The Weddell Polynya". University of Toronto/NASA. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
- ↑ Claire L. Parkinson; Joey C. Comiso & H. Jay Zwally (2014). "Nimbus-5 ESMR Polar Gridded Sea Ice Concentrations". National Snow and Ice Data Center. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
- ↑ "Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis | Sea ice data updated daily with one-day lag".
- ↑ Ryan Whitwam (11 October 2017). "Giant Hole Opens in Antarctic Ice Pack, and No One Knows Why". ExtremeTech.
- ↑ Casimir de Lavergne, Jaime B. Palter, Eric D. Galbraith, Raffaele Bernardello & Irina Marinov (2 March 2014). "Cessation of deep convection in the open Southern Ocean under anthropogenic climate change" (PDF). Nature Climate Change. 4 (4): 278–282. doi:10.1038/nclimate2132.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ Sarah Zielinski (3 March 2014). "Climate Change Felt in Deep Waters of Antarctica". Smithsonian.com. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
- ↑ Diana Francis, Clare Eayrs, Juan Cuesta, David Holland (24 April 2019). "Polar Cyclones at the Origin of the Reoccurrence of the Maud Rise Polynya in Austral Winter 2017". Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. JGR: Atmospheres. 124 (10): 5251–5267. Bibcode:2019JGRD..124.5251F. doi:10.1029/2019JD030618. S2CID 149497432.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ B. Stonehouse (3 December 1967). "Penguins in high latitudes". Tuatara: Volume 15, Issue 3. Victoria University of Wellington. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
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