Posted on 04/24/2008 11:26:54 AM PDT by Mount Athos
The Antarctic deep sea is getting colder, which might stimulate the circulation of the oceanic water masses... At the same time satellite images from the Antarctic summer have shown the largest sea-ice extent on record. In the coming years autonomous measuring buoys will be used to find out whether the cold Antarctic summer induces a new trend or was only a "slip“.
Under the direction of Dr. Eberhard Fahrbach, Oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute, 58 scientists from ten countries were on board the research vessel Polarstern in the Southern Ocean from 6 February until 16 April, 2008. They studied ocean currents as well as the distribution of temperature, salt content and trace substances in Antarctic sea water. "We want to investigate the role of the Southern Ocean for past, present and future climate,“ chief scientist Fahrbach said. The sinking water masses in the Southern Ocean are part of the overturning in this region and thus play a major role in global climate. "While the last Arctic summer was the warmest on record, we had a cold summer with a sea-ice maximum in the Antarctic. The expedition shall form the basis for understanding the opposing developments in the Arctic and in the Antarctic,“ Fahrbach said.
In the frame of the GEOTRACES project the scientists found the smallest iron concentrations ever measured in the ocean. As iron is an essential trace element for algal growth, and algae assimilate CO2 from the air, the concentration of iron is an important parameter against the background of the discussion to what extent the oceans may act as a carbon sink.
As the oceanic changes only become visible after several years and also differ spatially, the data achieved during the Polarstern expeditions are not sufficient to discern long-term developments. The data gap can only be closed with the aid of autonomous observing systems, moored at the seafloor or drifting freely, that provide oceanic data for several years. "As a contribution to the Southern Ocean Observation System we deployed, in international cooperation, 18 moored observing stations, and we recovered 20. With a total of 65 floating systems that can also collect data under the sea ice and are active for up to five years we constructed a unique and extensive measuring network,“ Fahrbach said.
In order to get the public, and especially the young generation, interested in science and research and to sensitise them for environmental processes, two teachers were on board Polarstern. Both took an active part in research work and communicated their experiences to pupils, colleagues and the media via internet and telephone. "We will bring home many impressions from this expedition, and we will be able to provide a lively picture of the polar regions and their impact on the whole earth to the pupils,“ Charlotte Lohse, teacher at the Heisenberg-Gymnasium in Hamburg, and Stefan Theisen from the Free Waldorf School in Kiel said.
The Polarstern expedition ANT-XXIV/3 was dedicated to examining the oceanic circulation and the oceanic cycles of materials that depend on it. Core themes were the projects CASO (Climate of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean) and GEOTRACES, two of the main projects in the Antarctic in the International Polar Year 2007/08.
It’s so flipping cold this year I can’t get my garden started off right.
When are they ever going to quit on the global warming bunk?
Paging Mr. Gore, paging Mr. Albert Gore, Junior. Reality on line 1 Mr. Gore.
“When are they ever going to quit on the global warming bunk?”
They’ll quit on the global warming bunk just as soon as they figure out a way to gain power, control minds, and make money with global cooling.
I can hear the Alarmists now...”how can we fit this data into our Global Warming world view?!”
When their grant money begins to dry up and not one second earlier.
Oops! Sounds like an "Inconvenient Truth" to me.
So, the deep sea is getting colder? And that will stimulate the circulation of water? Why? Cold water doesn't rise.
You’re right, cold water doesn’t rise. But when it sinks, it is replaced at the surface with warmer water, which thus creates a circulation.
Take this article down now! We do not allow dissent against the global warming consensus, only against the war in Iraq! Those scientists need to be lined up and shot for their heresy!
They’ll quit on the global warming bunk just as soon as they figure out a way to gain power, control minds, and make money with global cooling.
Actually the new buzzword is "Climate Change" crisis. When that gets imprinted on the minds of citizens as a new meme, they will drop global warming like a hot rock.
I see this article stating a causal relationship: colder temperatures in the deep sea is causing oceanic masses to circulate. I just don't see how.
Al oGre
“o·gre Audio Help [oh-ger] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. a monster in fairy tales and popular legend, usually represented as a hideous giant who feeds on human flesh.
2. a monstrously ugly, cruel, or barbarous person.”
There. Fixed that for you...:)
Water is densest at 4 deg C; above that temperature, it is less dense, and below that temperature - down to 0 deg C (where it will form ice) it is less dense.
This is why ice forms on the tops of lakes; the coldest water is at the surface, and does not sink to the bottom. Otherwise your lakes would ice up from the bottom.
So it depends upon the surface temperature. In the Antarctic, most of the surface water is at 0-2 deg C, and is less dense than water that is at 3-5 deg C, meaning the warmer water can be underneath the surface.
Well, I learned something. Thanks.
No problem... This is one of the “little miracles” that account for life. If water behaved like all other liquids and solids, it would keep getting denser as you cool it. And that WOULD mean lakes freezing from the bottom up, meaning that all fish in the lake would die when it froze.
Thankfully ice is less dense than water, and near-freezing water is lighter than slightly warmer water, so that marine and lake life can survive...:)
There. Fixed that for you...:)
Yup...much better.
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