Thermohaline Circulation
Here is a letter The Economist received after they published their survey on Global Warming some weeks ago...
SIR - One of the reasons the discussion of climate change is so frustrating is the continued dissemination of a basic error (A survey of climate change, September 9th). Your statement that “The Gulf Stream is driven both by the rotation of the Earth and by a deep-water current called the Thermohaline Circulation” is false. The Gulf Stream is a wind-driven phenomenon (as explained in a famous 1948 paper by Henry Stommel). It is part of a current system forced by the torque exerted on the ocean by the wind field. Heating and cooling affect its temperature and other properties, but not its basic existence or structure. As long as the sun heats the Earth and the Earth spins, so that we have winds, there will be a Gulf Stream.
Carl Wunsch
Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The whole letter here.
Posted in: _Sciences
SIR - One of the reasons the discussion of climate change is so frustrating is the continued dissemination of a basic error (A survey of climate change, September 9th). Your statement that “The Gulf Stream is driven both by the rotation of the Earth and by a deep-water current called the Thermohaline Circulation” is false. The Gulf Stream is a wind-driven phenomenon (as explained in a famous 1948 paper by Henry Stommel). It is part of a current system forced by the torque exerted on the ocean by the wind field. Heating and cooling affect its temperature and other properties, but not its basic existence or structure. As long as the sun heats the Earth and the Earth spins, so that we have winds, there will be a Gulf Stream.
Carl Wunsch
Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The whole letter here.
Posted in: _Sciences
Labels: Sciences
posted by Bambitroll at
11:23
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