Publication Date:
2022-11-10
Description:
© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Semper, S., Glessmer, M., Våge, K., & Pickart, R. How warm Gulf Stream water sustains a cold underwater waterfall. Frontiers for Young Minds, 10, (2022): 765740, https://doi.org/10.3389/frym.2022.765740.
Description:
The most famous ocean current, the Gulf Stream, is part of a large system of currents that brings warm water from Florida to Europe. It is a main reason for northwestern Europe’s mild climate. What happens to the warm water that flows northward, since it cannot just pile up? It turns out that the characteristics of the water change: in winter, the ocean warms the cold air above it, and the water becomes colder. Cold seawater, which is heavier than warm seawater, sinks down to greater depths. But what happens to the cold water that disappears from the surface? While on a research ship, we discovered a new ocean current that solves this riddle. The current brings the cold water to an underwater mountain ridge. The water spills over the ridge as an underwater waterfall before it continues its journey, deep in the ocean, back toward the equator.
Description:
Support for this work was provided by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101022251 (SS), the Trond Mohn Foundation Grant BFS2016REK01 (SS and KV), and the U.S. National Science Foundation Grants OCE-1558742 and OCE-1259618 (RP).
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
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