Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

The Southern Ocean - Recent Ventilation Changes

In the Southern Hemisphere there has been an intensification of the surface westerly winds over the past 20 years, primarily as a response to the formation of the ozone hole over the Antarctic, and intense debate has continued about the impact this has had on the circulation of the ocean and the uptake and redistribution of atmospheric gases. In this study the authors¹ used measurements of chlorofluorocarbon-12 (CFC-12) taken in the Southern Ocean in the early 1990s and mid-late 2000s to look for changes in ventilation of the ocean. Their results of the CFC-12 data revealed a decrease in the age of subtropical subantarctic mode waters and increased age of the circumpolar deep waters, which according to the authors¹ suggests large scale coherent changes in the Southern Ocean ventilation have resulted from the formation of the ozone hole.

Sources & Further reading

1. Waugh, Darryn W., Francois Primeau, Tim DeVries, and Mark Holzer. "Recent Changes in the Ventilation of the Southern Oceans." Science 339, no. 6119 (February 1, 2013 2013): 568-70.