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Australia: The Land Where Time Began |
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Greenland Meltwater Emerging Impact on the Formation of
Deepwater in the North Atlantic
Since the 1990s, there has been
increasing mass loss by the Greenland ice sheet (Chen, Wilson & Tapley,
2006; Sasgen et al., 2012). In the changing freshwater budget of the
subarctic Atlantic the increased freshwater flux resulting from surface
melting and discharge from outlet glaciers is assuming a role that is
becoming increasingly important (Bamber et
al., 2012). Böning et
al. suggest that suppression
of deep water convection in the Labrador Sea, which has potential
ramifications for the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, could
result from sustained and increasing freshwater fluxes from Greenland to
the surface of the ocean (Stouffer et al., 2006; Swingedouw et al.,
2013; Rhamstorf et al., 2015). In this paper Böning et
al. assess the impact of
increases of the flux of freshwater, which they reconstructed with full
resolution (Bamber et al.,
2012), by the use of a global ocean circulation model with a grid
spacing that was fine enough to capture the small-scale eddying
transport processes in the subpolar North Atlantic. It has been found by
these simulations that the invasion of fresh water from the West
Greenland shelf has initiated a trend of gradual freshening at the
surface of the Labrador Sea. The accumulation of meltwater may become
large enough to dampen progressively the deep winter convection in the
coming years, though the freshening is still smaller than the
variability that is associated with the episodic ‘great salinity
anomalies. Böning et al. conclude there has not yet been a significant impact by the
freshwater anomaly on the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.
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Author: M.H.Monroe Email: admin@austhrutime.com Sources & Further reading |