Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Earth

The Antarctic is Signaling Big Climate Trouble (nytimes.com) 115

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Around the frozen continent, a vast current circles the world. New science is revealing the power it holds over the future. Ice shelves are in retreat, and researchers are alarmed at what they're learning. From a report: The immense and forbidding Southern Ocean is famous for howling gales and devilish swells that have tested mariners for centuries. But its true strength lies beneath the waves. The ocean's dominant feature, extending up to two miles deep and as much as 1,200 miles wide, is the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, by far the largest current in the world. It is the world's climate engine, and it has kept the world from warming even more by drawing deep water from the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, much of which has been submerged for hundreds of years, and pulling it to the surface. There, it exchanges heat and carbon dioxide with the atmosphere before being dispatched again on its eternal round trip. Without this action, which scientists call upwelling, the world would be even hotter than it has become as a result of human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. "From no perspective is there any place more important than the Southern Ocean," said Joellen L. Russell, an oceanographer at the University of Arizona. "There's nothing like it on Planet Earth."

For centuries this ocean was largely unknown, its conditions so extreme that only a relative handful of sailors plied its iceberg-infested waters. What fragmentary scientific knowledge was available came from measurements taken by explorers, naval ships, the occasional research expeditions or whaling vessels. But more recently, a new generation of floating, autonomous probes that can collect temperature, density and other data for years -- diving deep underwater, and even exploring beneath the Antarctic sea ice, before rising to the surface to phone home -- has enabled scientists to learn much more. They have discovered that global warming is affecting the Antarctic current in complex ways, and these shifts could complicate the ability to fight climate change in the future. As the world warms, Dr. Russell and others say, the unceasing winds that drive the upwelling are getting stronger. That could have the effect of releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, by bringing to the surface more of the deep water that has held this carbon locked away for centuries.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

The Antarctic is Signaling Big Climate Trouble More

The Antarctic is Signaling Big Climate Trouble

Comments Filter:

  • .... for ever gallon of water ascending there'll be a gallon descending taking recently dissolved CO2 with it surely?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      You are assuming the concentration of CO2 is the same for each.

      • Uh, that makes no sense. The GP assumption is that the concentration of CO2 is DIFFERENT for the water rising than the water falling, else it wouldn't contain recently dissolved CO2.

        Which makes me wonder if a deep fracking well with a fountain on top would be an efficient way to soak up atmospheric carbon.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You are assuming the concentration of CO2 is the same for each.

        The article basically says more is still going in and down

        A recent study suggested that the Southern Ocean is still absorbing more carbon dioxide than it is releasing. But many researchers think the ocean may already be outgassing more carbon dioxide than previously thought.

        So still absorbing more but less than previously though.
        The main concern looks to be the water is warmer than expected and melting the underside of the ice. Which is currently holding back the ice sheets to some extent.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mspohr ( 589790 )

          You need to read the rest of the paragraph. (I know it's hard when your attention span is short so here it is...)
          "But the deep ocean water that upwells around Antarctica contains even more carbon dioxide"

          "By some estimates the oceans have taken up about 25 percent of the excess carbon dioxide, and more than 90 percent of the excess heat, that has resulted from burning of fossil fuels and other human activities since the 19th century. But the deep ocean water that upwells around Antarctica contains even more

  • As long as the population increases, so do our problems. The whole global economy is based on a pyramid scheme relying on an ever increasing population to pay for the deficit spending of today.You lose if you do nothing and you lose if you do something.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Muros ( 1167213 )
      Yes, because money borrowed and spent magically disappears... if only it went somewhere where it could be taxed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      An increasing population is a tremendous part of the problem. But it's only a part. Stone age hunters repeatedly drove the game they hunted to extinction, and with a pretty small population. (Of course, stampeding a herd off a cliff by setting a fire behind them isn't a very efficient hunting strategy, but it works.)

    • Hope for a fusion energy breakthrough ... like that Hail Mary shot when your team is behind and there are 2 seconds left in the game, here's the meme https://www.genolve.com/design... [genolve.com]

Slashdot Top Deals

To be awake is to be alive. -- Henry David Thoreau, in "Walden"

Close