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D'coda Dcoda

Arctic Ocean freshwater bulge detected [22Jan12] - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...science-environment-16657122

arctic ocean freshwater

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 23 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • UK scientists have detected a huge dome of freshwater that is developing in the western Arctic Ocean. The bulge is some 8,000 cubic km in size and has risen by about 15cm since 2002. The team thinks it may be the result of strong winds whipping up a great clockwise current in the northern polar region called the Beaufort Gyre. This would force the water together, raising sea surface height, the group tells the journal Nature Geoscience.
  • The data (1995-2010) indicates a significant swelling of water in the Beaufort Gyre, particularly since the early part of the 2000s. The rising trend has been running at 2cm per year.
  • A lot of research from buoys and other in-situ sampling had already indicated that water in this region of the Arctic had been freshening. This freshwater is coming in large part from the rivers running off the Eurasian (Russian) side of the Arctic basin. Winds and currents have transported this freshwater around the ocean until it has been pulled into the gyre. The volume currently held in the circulation probably represents about 10% of all the freshwater in the Arctic.
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  • "When you have clockwise rotation - the freshwater is stored. If the wind goes the other way - and that has happened in the past - then the freshwater can be pushed to the margins of the Arctic Ocean
  • "If the spin-up starts to spin down, the freshwater could be released. It could go to the rest of the Arctic Ocean or even leave the Arctic Ocean." If the freshwater were to enter the North Atlantic in large volumes, the concern would be that it might disturb the currents that have such a great influence on European weather patterns. These currents draw warm waters up from the tropics, maintaining milder temperatures in winter than would ordinarily be expected at northern European latitudes.
D'coda Dcoda

Forecast predicts biggest Gulf dead zone ever [16Jun11] - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/...llbmNlBHNsawNmb3JlY2FzdHByZWQ-

trends failure

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 16 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • Scientists predict this year's "dead zone" of low-oxygen water in the northern Gulf of Mexico will be the largest in history — about the size of Lake Erie — because of more runoff from the flooded Mississippi River valley.
  • Each year when the nutrient-rich freshwater from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers pours into the Gulf, it spawns massive algae blooms. In turn, the algae consume the oxygen in the Gulf, creating the low oxygen conditions. Fish, shrimp and many other species must escape the dead zone or face dying
  • Federal and university scientists predict this year's zone will be between 8,500 square miles and about 9,400 square miles. The actual size of the dead zone will be measured over the summer.
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  • The largest recorded dead zone was found in 2002 when 8,400 square miles of the Gulf was found to lacking sufficient oxygen for most marine life.
  • Eugene Turner, an oceanographer at Louisiana State University, said the dead zone has continued to get larger since it was first noticed and measured in the 1970s. He said the dead zone is getting worse with time.
  • The biggest contributor is the amount of fertilizer — and the nitrates and phosphates in them — that wind up in the Mississippi River each spring and get flushed out to the Gulf.
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