We knew that the Southern Ocean It is, in essence, the thermal lung of the Earth that is essential to regulate the temperature of the entire planet. But what we didn’t know exactly was how it managed to process such an amount of energy. Now, science has revealed that storms play a leading role that may be key to facing the global warming.
Its usefulness. To put ourselves in context we must know that the Southern Ocean It has the ability to absorb more than 75% of excess heat that is generated by the emissions of greenhouse gases that humans themselves produce.
This is something that makes it a true heat sink, potentially becoming the most important in the entire world. In this way, if we remove this Ocean from the equation of current life, the temperature of the atmosphere today would be much higher.
A blind spot. The climate models that we use on a daily basis have it, since when trying to predict how water heats up, the calculations did not quite fit with what was happening in reality. Clearly, some type of element was missing here that we did not fully locate.
But this has come to an end, thanks to the team led by Marcel du Plessis and Sebastiaan Swart who They have found the missing piece of the puzzle: ocean mixing driven by summer storms. A phenomenon that literally allows the ocean to ‘swallow’ atmospheric heat.
How is it possible? The mechanism that this ocean follows is as violent as it is efficient. During the southern summer, the sun heats the surface layer of the ocean, and if the water remains stagnant, then the heat will remain on the surface stored in the water, making it easier for it to return to the atmosphere or accelerate the melting of ice. The correct thing to do in this case would be to literally bury it in the depths.
And this is where storms come in, where the intense winds and extreme waves that are produced act like a giant mixer. In this way, the energy of the storm agitates the water, pushing heat from the surface into much deeper layers.
Towards the depth. In this way, storms help the surface of the ocean cool, which gives it the ability to continue absorbing heat from the air in a more efficient way.
And where does all this energy go? Well literally, When you go down to the deep sea you are ‘trapped’ there for decadesslowing down immediate atmospheric warming. Although we must keep our eyes on what will happen in the future.
How it has been measured. This is a practically obligatory question when we talk about the deep sea, which are truly hostile places for anyone. That is why our best ally has been marine robotics.
Instead of relying on satellites that have difficulty seeing through clouds or measuring depth accurately, this technology transferred to underwater gliders and autonomous buoys are capable of measuring temperature and salinity in real time. All this while a storm is passing over them, causing the phenomenon that has now been studied.
In this way, this technology has given us the ability to monitor the ocean “from within” during events that are impossible to study on ships.
We care (a lot). This discovery can be compared to that of a coin with two sides. On the one hand, we already have confirmation that the Southern Ocean is a very powerful ally in the fight against climate change. But on the other hand, we have a very disturbing question: what will happen if storm patterns change due to climate change itself?
If the storms move or lose intensity in this area, we could lose this “sponge” of heat that is slowing climate change. The consequences would be quite clear: a large increase in the temperature of the atmosphere that would be felt throughout the planet.
Images | jean wimmerlin Chris LeBoutillier
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