The vital currents of the Atlantic could collapse. Scientists compete

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Separately, research teams go on longer expeditions, typically every 18 months, to remove and replace sensors from three or four anchorages on the eastern side of the Bahamas. Their UK counterparts do the same work on the eastern side of the ocean and along the Atlantic Ridge.

Other groups set up mooring arrays in different parts of the Atlantic to better understand how the varying components work, how tightly coupled the system is, and whether changes in one section fluctuate.

Susan Lozier, oceanographer at the Georgia Institute of Technology, leads an international study known as OSNAP, which began in 2014. It moored cables along the Labrador Sea and from the southeastern tip of Greenland to the coast of Scotland.

The hope of the international research effort is to go to the sources of the deep submersion that is largely responsible for pushing currents in the Atlantic, and to “try to better understand the mechanisms driving change in AMOC,” says Lozier.

So far, what monitoring programs have largely found is that the Atlantic circulation is more volatile than previously believed.

Its power and speed fluctuate significantly from month to month, year to year, and region to region. Most of the deep waters in the North Atlantic are sinking seems to be happening not in the Labrador Sea, as has long been believed, but in the basins east of Greenland. The limbs running north and south work more independently than previously understood. Local wind patterns seem to play a more influential role than expected. And some findings are just confusing.

It is very likely that the Atlantic circulation has weakened. Research by Rahmstorf et al. of the Potsdam Institute, about 15% slower It may be more than the middle of the 20th century and at its weakest. more than 1000 years. Both findings are based in part on long-term reconstructions of its behavior using records such as Atlantic Ocean temperatures and the size of grains on the ocean floor, which can reflect changes in deep-sea currents.

also “strong dealIn models where currents will continue to weaken this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue.

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