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SURYAKEPRI.COM – Strong currents in the oceans have a major influence on Earth’s climate, as well as currents around Antarctica called the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (AAC). Recent research shows evidence that the ACC is accelerating, as most climate models predict.
The winds around Antarctica are blowing forever to the east with such great strength. Observations over the years have shown that these forces are increasing, driven by a combination of rising global temperatures and depletion of stratospheric ozone. However, data on the waters below are less comprehensive.
Now, Dr Jia-Rui Shi of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute has helped combine satellite data with evidence from ocean buoys to establish not only what happened to these currents, but also why. In Nature Climate Change, Shi and co-authors report that currents are getting stronger, and warmer ocean temperatures are to blame.
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ACC exists because the wind pushes the water, especially the crest of the wave. Intuitively, we would expect stronger winds to match stronger currents. However, climate models predict that over current speeds, the effect will be small because most of the additional energy supplied by the wind is lost in eddies, where water spins away from the main current, sometimes against the main direction.
“From observations and models, we found that changes in ocean heat caused the significant acceleration of ocean currents detected over the last few decades,” Shi said in a statement.
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