Among scientists, be on the lookout for an increasingly clear shift of major ocean currents, and they seem to be heading towards collapse. Seawater warming caused by anthropogenic climate change is causing a slowdown in deep circulation patterns in the Atlantic and Southern Oceans. If this process continues, the ocean’s ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will be severely limited, exacerbating global warming, according to Earth system scientists at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).
In a recently published study Nature Climate Changethese researchers analyzed projections from three dozen climate models and found that the Atlantic Oscillation Meridional Circulation and the Southern Oscillation Meridional Circulation. They will slow to 42% by 2100. Simulations show that, in the worst case, this current system could disappear completely by 2300.
“Analysis of projections from 36 Earth system models under a range of climate scenarios shows that runaway global warming can lead to disruption of deep ocean circulation“, says J. Keith Moore, co-author of the study and Professor of Earth Systems Sciences at UCI. “This would mean a climate catastrophe of comparable magnitude to the complete melting of land ice sheets.”
In the Atlantic, warm water cools and evaporates as it flows north on the surface, making it saltier and denser. This heavier water sinks deep into the ocean and heads south and rises there. transport of nutrients, which form the nutritional basis of marine ecosystems, from the depths.
In addition, the ocean circulation stretching across the planet, powerful factory to process atmospheric carbon dioxide. The basic physical and chemical interaction of seawater and air (what Moore and colleagues call the “solubility pump”) pulls CO2 into the ocean. Although ocean circulation returns some of the carbon to the sky, net amount is kept in the depths of the ocean.
Formation of carbonate crusts
Also, a “biological bomb” when phytoplankton use CO2 during photosynthesis and in the formation of carbonate crusts. When plankton and larger animals die, they sink, slowly breaking down and releasing carbon and nutrients deep down. Some of it returns to the surface by circulation and uplift, but some is stored under the waves.
“ORImpairment of circulation will reduce the ocean’s uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.will concentrate and prolongs hot weather conditions“Explains Moore.
“In time, foods sustaining marine ecosystems more and more trapped in the depths of the oceanresulting in a reduction in the biological productivity of the global ocean”.
man depends bomb resolution and biological bomb to help remove some of the CO2 emitted into the air by burning fossil fuels, land use practices and other activities according to Moore.
“Our analysis also shows that reduce greenhouse gas emissions now may prevent complete closure of deep circulation in the future“, He claimed.
Reference work: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01555-7
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