Cooling down the world oceans and the earth by enhancing the North Atlantic Ocean current

• Published in: SN Applied Sciences
• Main Authors: Hunt, Julian David, Nascimento, Andreas, Diuana, Fabio A., de Assis Brasil Weber, Natália, Castro, Gabriel Malta, Chaves, Ana Carolina, Mesquita, André Luiz Amarante, Colling, Angéli Viviani, Schneider, Paulo Smith
• Other Authors: CAPES/BRAZIL
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Science and Business Media LLC 2019
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; General Physics and Astronomy; General Engineering; General Environmental Science; General Materials Science; General Chemical Engineering; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; albedo; Global warming; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42452-019-1755-y; http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s42452-019-1755-y.pdf; http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42452-019-1755-y/fulltext.html

Abstract The world is going through intensive changes due to global warming. It is well known that the reduction in ice cover in the Arctic Ocean further contributes to increasing the atmospheric Arctic temperature due to the reduction of the albedo effect and increase in heat absorbed by the ocean’s surface. The Arctic ice cover also works like an insulation sheet, keeping the heat in the ocean from dissipating into the cold Arctic atmosphere. Increasing the salinity of the Arctic Ocean surface would allow the warmer and less salty North Atlantic Ocean current to flow on the surface of the Arctic Ocean considerably increasing the temperature of the Arctic atmosphere and release the ocean heat trapped under the ice. This paper argues that if the North Atlantic Ocean current could maintain the Arctic Ocean ice-free during the winter, the longwave radiation heat loss into space would be larger than the increase in heat absorption due to the albedo effect. This paper presents details of the fundamentals of the Arctic Ocean circulation and presents three possible approaches for increasing the salinity of the surface water of the Arctic Ocean. It then discusses that increasing the salinity of the Arctic Ocean would warm the atmosphere of the Arctic region, but cool down the oceans and possibly the Earth. However, it might take thousands of years for the effects of cooling the oceans to cool the global average atmospheric temperature.