Here's Why the Antarctic Ocean Has Not Warmed Yet Despite Climate Change
As the rest of the world grapples with the consequences brought about human-driven climate change, scientists have recently uncovered the reason that explains why the waters around Antarctica seem relatively unaffected by the effects of global warming.
Recent findings reveal that the ocean currents surrounding Antarctica are pulling up centuries-old seawater from ocean depths to the surface. The deep old water last interacted with the Earth's atmosphere before the advent of industrial age leaving it largely untouched by global warming. Only when the burning of fossil fuels became a standard feature of modernized economy did the atmosphere started getting warmer with the accumulation of greenhouse gases.
"It's really deep, old water that's coming up to the surface, all around the continent. You have a lot of water coming to the surface, and that water hasn't seen the atmosphere for hundreds of years," said lead author Kyle Armour, assistant professor at University of Washington as quoted by Science Daily.
The ocean water in the cold regions of the south originates from great distant depths that will normally take hundreds of years before the old deep water reaching the surface becomes in touch with the effects of global warming largely due to human intervention.
"The Southern Ocean is unique because it's bringing water up from several thousand meters [as much as 2 miles]," Armour continued, the Science Explorer reported. "It's really deep, old water that's coming up to the surface, all around the continent."
Moreover, strong westerly winds push the South Ocean's surface water up north in the Arctic to make way for centuries-old deep cold water to move upward until it reaches the surface off Antarctica's coast. This explains the reason why Artic ice caps are melting why Antarctica seem quite unaffected.
"The oceans are acting to enhance warming in the Arctic while damping warming around Antarctica," Armour explained as per Nature World News. "You can't directly compare warming at the poles, because it's occurring on top of very different ocean circulations."
