GEOG4115 Oceanography : Global Ocean Conveyor

This paper presents a detailed description of how thermohaline circulation (TC) (the Global Ocean Conveyor/GOC) is affecting the dissolved constituents’ distribution throughout the global oceans. To showcase this, it emphasizes on lateral variation in the deep water concentration of dissolved nutrients for example nitrate, phosphate, dissolved in organic carbon, silicate as well as dissolved oxygen as the water mass ages from its path from the north Atlantic to the north Pacific (Tesi et al. 2017).

The TC describes the large scale trend to the manner in which seawater travels about the global ocean. This trend remains propelled by the alterations in the temperature besides the seawater salinity that varies the seawater’s density. This, therefore, affects the seawater at surface of the ocean and right into deep water. It thus trigger the movement of water from place to place globally.

The GOC moves the seawater slowly to the tune of at least ten centimeters per second, however, a huge amount of seawater get moved. This is about 100 times the amount being distributed by the Amazon River. The variations in the relative water density is the main trigger for the movement of water. The denser water inevitably descend underneath the slightly dense seawater.

The density of the seawater is controlled by both water salinity and water temperature. Cold water remains denser than the warm water. Cold water results when its heat is lost to the atmosphere in presence of high latitude. Warm water is as a result of water getting heated by solar energy influx in presence of lower latitude. The less salty seawater is less dense than saltier one. Water salinity results from high rates of evaporation whereas it is lost in presence of freshwater influx in case of precipitation or melting ice as well as land runoff.

TC is propelled primarily by the variances in temperature presently in the Atlantic. Water adjacent to equator is heated and moves to surface of ocean north then into higher latitude. This water consequently lose certain amount of heat to the atmosphere. Accordingly, cooled water will descend to deep ocean thereby travelling the global ocean possibly failing to surface for about hundreds or thousand years.

A concern subsists that as the Arctic get warm while increased sea ice getting melted down, the freshwater influx will trigger higher latitude seawater slightly dense. The slightly dense seawater will be incapable of descending as well as circulating through the world. This could in the end halt the GOC thereby altering the European and North American continents’ the climate (Sofianos and Johns 2017).

In conclusion, whereas there exist separate names for oceans, they are certainly not really distinct. No walls between these oceans exist thus water can move freely between the oceans since they are linked in single global ocean.    

References

Sofianos, S. and Johns, W.E., 2017. The summer circulation in the Gulf of Suez and its influence in the Red Sea thermohaline circulation. Journal of Physical Oceanography, (2017).

Tesi, T., Asioli, A., Minisini, D., Maselli, V., Della Valle, G., Gamberi, F., Montagna, P., Langone, L., Cattaneo, A. and Trincardi, F., 2017, April. Large-scale response of the Adriatic thermohaline circulation to African monsoon intensification during the Holocene. In EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts (Vol. 19, p. 10256).