The amount of a specific type of ocean water in the depths around Antarctica is shrinking, according to measurements taken between 1980 and 2011. The rate of loss is about 8 million metric tons per second!
Scientists don't yet know the exact reason for the change, or whether it is a cycle or a long-term trend. Link -via Blues News
This mass of water is called Antarctic Bottom Water, which is formed in a few distinct locations around Antarctica, where seawater is cooled by the overlying air and made saltier by ice formation (which leaves the salt behind in the unfrozen water). The cold, salty water is denser than the water around it, causing it to sink to the sea floor where it spreads northward, filling most of the deep ocean around the world as it slowly mixes with warmer waters above it.
The world’s deep ocean currents play a critical role in transporting heat and carbon around the planet, which helps regulate the Earth's climate.
Scientists don't yet know the exact reason for the change, or whether it is a cycle or a long-term trend. Link -via Blues News
Newest 4 Comments
I hate with an intense passion the use of the word "disappearing" in nonscientific articles about climate change. Surely there's a way to paint it in a negative light without outright being silly about words.
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Must be the Lithuanians siphoning off the water for their Vytautas Mineral Water.
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Nobody knows why it's happening but you can bet your life this will be another thing the global warming ecomentalists will latch on to with evangelical fervour.
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I'm sure it'll be okay. The world was 7 degrees celsius warmer 12,000 years ago. Climate changes (seriously no pun intended). Whatever the conditions are that make something disappear also have the ability to make it reappear.
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