Southern Ocean 3D Dynamics: Overturning, Deep Warming, Surface Saltification and Abyssal Freshening
Climate Scientists are definitely Northern-Hemisphere-Centric, to the detriment of their climate system understanding.
The Southern Ocean plays a supersized part in absorbing excess heat from the warming planet, in fact accounting for about 70% of GHG induced extra heating; basically partaking in between 60% to 90% of the total heat absorption in the global oceans. Most people know the factoid that the global oceans absorb over 90% of the heating of the planet from climate change: it is important to realize that the Southern Oceans do the bulk of this work.
Southern Ocean zonal average temperatures are dominated by a region centred near 45 degrees S latitude, extending from the surface down 1000 meters (3300 feet). At mid-depths and within the Antarctica Circumpolar Current region (ACC) the warming rate is about twice that of the global upper ocean warming.
With our northern-focused-climate-bias, most of us are aware of the weakening Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in the North Atlantic.
Here I chat all about the ocean circulation patterns in the Southern Atlantic Ocean in great detail, discussing interactions between surface currents, intermediate depth water (1000 to 2000 m), deep water (2000 to 4000 meters) and abyssal water (4000 to 6000 m). Also discussed are the saltificaton of surface waters, freshening of deeper waters, and warning of the various water layers.
This is viral information to deepening our understanding of the global climate system interactions and changes.
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