Atlantic Ocean key to global-warming pause
Changing currents could be driving heat into the deep sea.
Warm tropical waters flow towards high latitudes, where they sink into the deep ocean and head back towards the Equator.
These circulation patterns carry sun-warmed tropical waters into the higher latitudes, where they sink and flow back towards the Equator, says lead author Ka-Kit Tung, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
From the 1970s to the 1990s, Tung says, this movement was relatively slow.
But around 1999, the currents sped up, sending relatively warm water into the ocean depths instead.
http://www.nature.com/news/atlantic-ocean-key-to-global-warming-pause-1.15755
Changing currents could be driving heat into the deep sea.
Warm tropical waters flow towards high latitudes, where they sink into the deep ocean and head back towards the Equator.
These circulation patterns carry sun-warmed tropical waters into the higher latitudes, where they sink and flow back towards the Equator, says lead author Ka-Kit Tung, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
From the 1970s to the 1990s, Tung says, this movement was relatively slow.
But around 1999, the currents sped up, sending relatively warm water into the ocean depths instead.
http://www.nature.com/news/atlantic-ocean-key-to-global-warming-pause-1.15755
