![]() |
||
![]() |
![]() |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]()
June
8, 2007 Monitoring the
saltiness of the
ocean water could provide an early indicator of climate change.
Significant
increases or decreases in salt in key areas could forewarn of climate
change in
10 to 20 years time. Presenting their findings at a recent European
Science
Foundation (ESF) conference, scientists predicted that the waters of
the
southern hemisphere oceans around Palaeoclimate data
shows that the
ocean’s currents (like the Gulf Stream and its Their results reveal
that a build
up of salty water can stimulate deep water circulation, while a
diluting of the
waters is linked to sluggish flow. "Salt plays a far more important
role
that we first thought," says Professor Rainer Zahn, a
palaeoclimatologist
at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Salt increases the
density of
water. Once a pocket of water becomes salty enough it sinks, drawing in
additional water from surrounding areas, and initiates an ocean
circulation
loop called thermohaline overturning. The scientists
discovered that a
build up of salt in the waters off the coast of Models and data both
indicate
that these changes in ocean circulation occur over very short
time-scales,
usually in less than a decade or two. Ocean water can't possibly travel
this
fast (it takes nearly a century for a parcel of water to move from the
South
Atlantic to the Regardless of
whether ocean
circulation speeds up or slows down it causes significant climate
change,
altering the hydrological cycle and affecting atmospheric circulation
patterns
too. Currently there is
no large-scale
salt monitoring system in place in the southern hemisphere oceans. Zahn
thinks
that regular measurements taken in the waters around
Recommend this Article to a Friend Back to: News |
Subscribe to the Earth Observatory About the Earth Observatory Contact Us Privacy Policy and Important Notices Responsible NASA Official: Lorraine A. Remer Webmaster: Goran Halusa We're a part of the Science Mission Directorate |