Thermohaline circulations and global climate change

• Main Author: Hanson, H.P.
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; ATLANTIC OCEAN; AIR-WATER INTERACTIONS; CLIMATIC CHANGE; ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS; CARBON DIOXIDE; CLIMATES; GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS; OCEANIC CIRCULATION; PROGRESS REPORT; SALINITY; CARBON COMPOUNDS; CARBON OXIDES; CHALCOGENIDES; DOCUMENT TYPES; MATHEMATICAL MODELS; OXIDES; OXYGEN COMPOUNDS; SEAS; SURFACE WATERS; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/7160995; https://www.osti.gov/biblio/7160995; https://doi.org/10.2172/7160995

This report discusses research activities conducted during the period 15 January 1992--14 December 1992. Thermohaline Circulations and Global Climate Change is concerned with investigating the hypothesis that changes in surface thermal and hydrological forcing of the North Atlantic, changes that might be expected to accompany C0[sub 2]-induced global warming, could result in ocean-atmosphere interactions' exerting a positive feedback on the climate system. Because the North Atlantic is the source of much of the global ocean's reservoir of deep water, and because this deep water could sequester large amounts of anthropogenically produced C0[sub 2], changes in the rate of deep-water production are important to future climates. Since deep-water Production is controlled, in part, by the annual cycle of the atmospheric forcing of the North Atlantic, and since this forcing depends strongly on both hydrological and thermal processes as well as the windstress, there is the potential for feedback between the relatively short-term response of the atmosphere to changing radiative forcing and the longer-term processes in the oceans. Work over the past 11 months has proceeded according to the continuation discussion of last January and several new results have arisen.