What is the significance of the thermohaline conveyor belt?
A process known as thermohaline circulation, or the ocean conveyor belt, drives these deep, underwater currents. Thermohaline circulation moves a massive current of water around the globe, from northern oceans to southern oceans, and back again.
What does the thermohaline circulation belt do?
thermohaline circulation ocean conveyor belt system in which water moves between the cold depths and warm surface in oceans throughout the world.
How does the thermohaline conveyor work?
Thermohaline circulation begins in the Earth’s polar regions. When ocean water in these areas gets very cold, sea ice forms. Surface water is pulled in to replace the sinking water, which in turn eventually becomes cold and salty enough to sink. This initiates the deep-ocean currents driving the global conveyer belt.
What is thermohaline circulation and why is it important?
Thermohaline circulation plays an important role in supplying heat to the polar regions. Therefore, it influences the rate of sea ice formation near the poles, which in turn affects other aspects of the climate system (such as the albedo, and thus solar heating, at high latitudes).
What is the thermohaline conveyor?
thermohaline circulation, also called Global Ocean Conveyor or Great Ocean Conveyor Belt, the component of general oceanic circulation controlled by horizontal differences in temperature and salinity. The general circulation of the oceans consists primarily of wind-driven ocean currents.
How long does thermohaline circulation take?
Lecture notes from one of Columbia University’s 2007 “The Climate System” class suggests this process takes between 100-1000 years. This paper says Thermohaline Circulation overturns deep water every 600 years or so.
Where is the thermohaline?
The basic thermohaline circulation is one of sinking of cold water in the polar regions, chiefly in the northern North Atlantic and near Antarctica. These dense water masses spread into the full extent of the ocean and gradually upwell to feed a slow return flow to the sinking regions.
What would happen if thermohaline circulation stopped?
– If global warming shuts down the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean, the result could be catastrophic climate change. Between Greenland and Norway, the water cools, sinks into the deep ocean, and begins flowing back to the south.
What is the origin of thermohaline?
The adjective thermohaline derives from thermo- referring to temperature and -haline referring to salt content, factors which together determine the density of sea water. This dense water then flows into the ocean basins.
Is the thermohaline conveyor belt in the ocean?
In the 1980s, Wallace Broecker suggested that the fluxes of heat and freshwater around the globe in ocean currents and water masses could be viewed as a kind of ‘ thermohaline conveyor belt’ (Figure 6.41 ).
Which is part of the great ocean conveyor belt?
The Thermohaline Circulation – The Great Ocean Conveyor Belt. The oceans are mostly composed of warm salty water near the surface over cold, less salty water in the ocean depths. These two regions don’t mix except in certain special areas. The ocean currents, the movement of the ocean in the surface layer, are driven mostly by the wind.
Where does the global thermohaline conveyor circulation take place?
The conveyor ‘cartoon’ graphically illustrates the idea that the driving mechanism for the global thermohaline circulation – sometimes referred to as the meridional overturning circulation – is the formation of North Atlantic Deep Water. So, why is no Deep Water formed in the North Pacific?
How does thermohaline circulation work in the ocean?
A process known as thermohaline circulation, or the ocean conveyor belt, drives these deep, underwater currents. Thermohaline circulation moves a massive current of water around the globe, from northern oceans to southern oceans, and back again.