One of the key drivers of the world’s climate is an area in the North Atlantic Ocean where warmer and colder water mix and swirl. When scientists went for their first close look at the area, they found they were looking in the wrong place.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is what scientists describe as a giant ocean conveyor belt that moves water from Greenland south to beyond the tip of Africa and into the Indian Ocean.
Warm, salty water near the surface moves north and mixes with cold, fresher water near Greenland. As that water cools and sinks it drives a slow circulation of the oceans.
The faster it moves, the more warm water gets sent into the depths to cool.
The area where warm water turns over in the North Atlantic is considered to be the engine of the conveyor belt.
Scientists thought it was in the Labrador Sea west of Greenland, but then a new international science team measured temperature, saltiness and the speed of ocean currents throughout the North Atlantic to try to better understand the conveyor belt.
The preliminary results after hundreds of measurements in 21 months found that engine was several hundreds of kilometers east of where they figured, said study lead author Susan Lozier, a professor of ocean sciences at Duke University.
The study, published in Thursday’s issue of the journal Science, puts it east of Greenland, closer to Scotland.
The computer simulations that predict how the climate could change did not factor in exactly where the conveyor belt engine is and now they might be able to.
Lozier and several outside experts said this does not change their trust in the models.
“It doesn’t mean that the models are all wrong at all,” said Tom Delworth, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s geophysical lab in Princeton, New Jersey.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Carl Wunsch and other outside experts said the study was helpful, but added that 21 months of study is not enough to know if this different location is temporary or permanent.
WORST-CASE SCENARIO
Scientists have long said that the conveyor belt could be slowing and, in a worst-case scenario, could even stop and cause abrupt and catastrophic climate change.
It is considered a potential climate tipping point that was the premise of the 2004 disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow.
Based on computer model studies, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported in an earlier study it is “very unlikely” that the conveyor belt would collapse this century.
However, the panel said it is likely to get about one-third slower if greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current pace.
A study last year said that the conveyor belt was moving at its slowest speed in nearly 140 years of records.
“Our basic understanding that the collapse is unlikely still stands,” said Delworth, who was not part of the study. “Our uncertainty about that prediction is high.”
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