What is the thermohaline circulation system?
Thermohaline circulation describes the movement of ocean currents due to differences in temperature and salinity in different regions of water. Temperature and salinity change the density of water, resulting in the water to move accordingly. Cold water is usually denser than warm water (4°C is where water is densest).
What is thermohaline circulation quizlet?
Thermohaline circulation is a worldwide current system in which the warmer, fresher water moves along the surface while the colder, saltier water moves beneath it.
What is the main cause of thermohaline circulation?
The thermohaline circulation is mainly driven by the formation of deep water masses in the North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean caused by differences in temperature and salinity of the water.
What are the characteristics of thermohaline circulation?
Important features of the thermohaline circulation are deep water formation, spreading of deep waters partly through deep boundary currents, and upwelling and near-surface currents—together leading to a large-scale deep overturning motion of the oceans.
Where does thermohaline circulation occur?
The basic thermohaline circulation is one of sinking of cold water in the polar regions, chiefly in the northern North Atlantic and near Antarctica. These dense water masses spread into the full extent of the ocean and gradually upwell to feed a slow return flow to the sinking regions.
Why is deep ocean circulation referred to as thermohaline quizlet?
It continually replaces seawater at depth with water from the surface and slowly replaces surface water elsewhere with water rising from deeper depths. Called thermohaline because temperature and salinity together determine density of seawater.
What causes thermohaline circulation quizlet?
thermohaline circulation- vertical circulation caused by changes in density; driven by variations in temperature and salinity.
What does the thermohaline circulation depend on quizlet?
They are driven mainly by wind.
What two factors affect thermohaline circulation?
These deep-ocean currents are driven by differences in the water’s density, which is controlled by temperature (thermo) and salinity (haline). This process is known as thermohaline circulation.
How do thermohaline currents develop?
Convection penetrates to a level where the density of the sinking water matches that of the surrounding water. It then spreads slowly into the rest of the ocean. Other water must replace the surface water that sinks. This sets up the thermohaline circulation.
What happens if the thermohaline circulation stops?
If the currents were to stop completely, the average temperature of Europe would cool 5 to 10 degrees Celsius. There would also be impacts on fisheries and hurricanes in the region. The currents in the North Atlantic are part of a global pattern called thermohaline circulation, or the global ocean conveyor.
How does ocean circulation affect climate?
Ocean currents act much like a conveyer belt, transporting warm water and precipitation from the equator toward the poles and cold water from the poles back to the tropics. Thus, currents regulate global climate, helping to counteract the uneven distribution of solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface.
What would cause ocean circulation to slow down quizlet?
GLOBAL WARMING, which increases glacier melting and increases precipitation, could lead to an increase in freshwater in the northern oceans, resulting in a slowdown or shutdown of these currents.
How do ocean currents affect climate?
Which ocean current drives the thermohaline circulation quizlet?
The North Atlantic deep water is what causes the thermohaline circulation.
What are the 2 main factors that affect the density of sea water?
The density of seawater depends on temperature and salinity. Higher temperatures decrease the density of seawater, while higher salinity increases the density of seawater. The following figure shows how density is affected by temperature and salinity.
What might happen if ocean water stopped circulating around the world?
If it continues to slow, that could have profound consequences for Earth’s inhabitants. Studies suggest it would mean much colder winters and hotter summers in Europe, changing rainfall patterns in the tropics, and warmer water building up along the U.S. coast that can fuel sea level rise and destructive storms.
What would happen if thermohaline circulation stopped?
– If global warming shuts down the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean, the result could be catastrophic climate change. The environmental effects, models indicate, depend upon whether the shutdown is reversible or irreversible.
How important is the ocean circulation?
Ocean circulation is a key regulator of climate by storing and transporting heat, carbon, nutrients and freshwater all around the world . Complex and diverse mechanisms interact with one another to produce this circulation and define its properties.
What would cause ocean circulation to slow down?
The slowdown of ocean circulation is directly caused by warming global temperatures and has been predicted by climate scientists. “This has been predicted, basically, for decades that this circulation would weaken in response to global warming.
How are oceanic currents affected by global climate change quizlet?
Why is ocean circulation important?
What is the source of Antarctic water that helps to drive thermohaline circulation quizlet?
It is driven by heat and salinity of the sea water which is where the term thermohaline comes from. Temperature and salinity make up the density of the water.
Which two changes would increase the density of the ocean water?
The density of seawater can be increased by reducing its temperature, increasing its salinity , or increasing the pressure. Pressure has the least impact on density as water is fairly incompressible, so pressure effects are not very significant except at extreme depths.
How does temperature affect the density of ocean water?
Temperature changes effect seawater density: as water cools its density increases. As water cools, H2O molecules pack more closely together (because the molecules are vibrating less at lower temperatures) and take up less volume. The same number of water molecules in smaller volume results in a higher density.