Re: Scientists discover why is the North Pole frozen

From: Daryl Krupa (icycalmca_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 02/24/05 

Date: 24 Feb 2005 09:34:16 -0800

George wrote:
<snip>
> Here is an article that disucsses the closure, and some of its
implications (go
> to the link to view the graphics):
>
> http://oceanusmag.whoi.edu/v42n2/haug.html

  Hmmm ... more puzzling errancy ...

> How the Isthmus of Panama Put Ice in the Arctic
>
> By Gerald H. Haug, Geoforschungszentrum Potsdam (GFZ), Germany;
> Ralf Tiedemann, Forschungszentrum fur Marine Geowissenschaften,
Germany;
> and Lloyd D. Keigwin, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

<snip>
> In today's ocean, warm, salty surface water from the Caribbean, the
Gulf of
> Mexico, and the equatorial Atlantic flows northward in the Gulf
Stream. As the
> warm water reaches high North Atlantic latitudes, it gives up heat
and moisture
> to the atmosphere, leaving cold, salty, dense water that sinks to the
ocean
> floor. This water flows at depths, southward and beneath the Gulf
Stream, to the
> Southern Ocean, then through the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Eventually, the
> water mixes with warmer water and returns to the Atlantic to complete
the
> circulation.
>
> The principal engine of this global circulation, often called the
Ocean
> Conveyor, is the difference in salt content between the Atlantic and
Pacific
> Oceans.
<snip>

  Heh? I always thought that the principal driver in
that system was the formation of North Atlantic
Deep Water, that is obliquely referred to above, but
its formation is there ascribed to evaporative cooling,
rather than the usual explanation of sinking of hyper-
saline cold water after the surface layer freezes.
  But Haug, etc. want to blame it all on wind, and
differential salinity in the Pacific and Atlantic.

> Revving up the Gulf Stream
> How does this make ice in the North?
<snip>
> An invigorated Ocean Conveyor could
> have driven a stronger flow of deep waters from the Atlantic to the
North
> Pacific Ocean, which is the end of the line for deep-ocean
circulation.

  I have serious problems with their global current diagram,
which would make the Califormia Current the product of upwelling, and
ignores the formation of Deep Water
in the Antarctic.

<snip>
> In the Subarctic Pacific, these deep waters could
> have upwelled, rising to the sunlit surface to provide the
ingredients to spark
> enormous blooms of phytoplankton.
<snip>

  Ah, so the diagram is not for present conditions,
but rather for an imaginary set of conditions in the
Late Pliocene.
  Interesting ... but not very well-labelled.

> Short-circuiting the Conveyor
<snip>

> The onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation also affected the
Subarctic Pacific.
> It led to the formation about 2.7 million years ago of a freshwater
lid at the
> surface of the ocean, called a halocline.

  What? Now the freshening of the North Pacific
is an effect, not a cause, of Northern Hemisphere
Glaciation?
  This conflicts directly with Haug's article in _Nature_.
  I don't get it.

<snip>
> The lessons from these vast geologic and geographic changes is both
elegantly
> simple and excruciatingly complex. The opening and closing of seaways
has a
> profound influence on the distribution of fresh water, nutrients, and
energy in
> the global ocean. The coupling of these changing oceans with a
changing
> atmosphere inevitably means a changing climate.
<snip>

  But does not, apparently, mean a frozen North Pole.

Still confused,
Daryl Krupa

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