We were interested in the factors that drive and control Broecker's ocean conveyor belt. The most influencial process is called...
The Thermohaline Circulation (THC):
What is that? If you've come across some latin terms you might have figured out that thermo obviously refers to temperature, while haline refers to salinity. Thus, you have just named the two most important factors that drive the ocean conveyor belt.
Here is how it works:
The Thermohaline Circulation (THC):
What is that? If you've come across some latin terms you might have figured out that thermo obviously refers to temperature, while haline refers to salinity. Thus, you have just named the two most important factors that drive the ocean conveyor belt.
Here is how it works:
In the oceans, this phenomenon leads to large water masses being "sorted" by their density, with coldest and saltiest waters on the bottom of the ocean and warmest, freshest waters at the surface (Broecker, 1997).
Are you the kind who doesn't like jumping into the salty ocean during your beach holidays??... well be happy you're not a diver ;)
The upper figure shows that under normal circumstances there is no mixing between the layers. However, imagine you change the density of one water parcel in the corner of the figure by making it colder, then the parcel would sink and push away the last water parcel in the bottom layer which is forced to rise. Due to the rise it heats up slightly and becomes less dense, rising even better. And just like that you end up with a cycle that gets your water layers to rotate. In principle, the ocean conveyor works just like that. At upwelling areas bottom deep water comes to the surface, while downwelling areas surface waters sink to the bottom (Broecker, 1997).
To fully understand the process, let's take a trip to the most presigious downwelling areas on Earth: ARCTICA and ANTARCTICA
wooooooo.... you'll need your mittens!
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