Saturday, June 2, 2012

How does heat effect the salinity in water?

Salt water loses heat to the air, while it is transported to the extremities of the North Atlantic. Low temperature and high salt content, together, increase the density of water, which goes to deep.  Surface water replaces it and colder deep waters are pushed to the South Atlantic, Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean, eventually mixing it again with hot water and rising up to the surface.


Propelled mainly by prevailing winds and water density differences, which change depending on temperature and marine salinity, ocean currents are essential in cooling, heating and humidifiers land surface of Earth - and to transfer heat from the Equator to the Poles .


The engine which leads the ocean belt is salt thermal circulation driven by density ( "thermo" for heat and "salt" for salt). Hot salt water flows in the tropical north Atlantic to Pole by surface currents, as Gulfstream.


Changes in temperature and salinity of water, depending on howdrastic they are,  may have significant effects on movement currents belt . Ocean temperature is rising in all ocean basins and at depths much greater than originally thought ones, say researchers at the National Ocean and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA).


Excessive changes in ocean's temperature and salinity can disrupt   thermo-saline North Atlantic circulation,so that to slow or even stop the belt currents - which would cause drastic climate changes in a short time span of a decade.


The future interruption ofthermal salt  traffic  remains, even on long term, a worrisome possibility. Connection between the atmosphere chemistry altering and  ocean changes is undeniable, says Nicholas Bates, principal investigator at the Bermuda Atlantic Timeseries Study station that monitors temperature, chemical composition and salinity of deep waters in the Sargasso Sea, at southeast of the Bermuda Triangle.


Oceans are storages, ie.. absorption centers, important for carbon dioxide and they are taking about one third of the CO2 generated by human activities.

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