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The Greenland-Scotland Ridge looms like a great undersea barrier, stretching from East Greenland to Iceland and the Faroe Islands, and across to Scotland. The Denmark Strait is a critical checkpoint through which cold, fresher waters from northern seas flow across the ridge into the the main body of the North Atlantic Ocean. (Illustration by E. Paul Oberlander, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)From USGS, who is now apparently in the climate business, because mapping and earthquakes are sooo 20th century.  New Discoveries Improve Climate ModelsUnderwater Ridges Impact Ocean’s Flow of Warm WaterNew discoveries on how underwater ridges impact the ocean’s circulation system...

Tropical ocean waters have become dramatically saltier over the past 40 years, while oceans closer to Earth's poles have become fresher, scientists reported today in the journal Nature. Earth's warming surface may be intensifying evaporation over oceans in the low latitudes -- raising salinity concentrations there -- and transporting more fresh water vapor via the atmosphere toward Earth's poles. These large-scale, relatively rapid oceanic changes suggest that recent climate changes, including global warming, may be altering the fundamental planetary system that regulates evaporation and precipitation and cycles fresh water around the globe. The study was conducted by Ruth Curry, a...