Ocean Supergyre Link To Climate Regulator

Australian scientists have identified the missing deep ocean pathway - or 'supergyre' - linking the three Southern Hemisphere ocean basins in research that will help them explain more accurately how the ocean governs global climate. The new research confirms the current sweeping out of the Tasman Sea past Tasmania and towards the South Atlantic is a previously undetected component of the world climate system's engine-room - the thermohaline circulation or 'global conveyor belt'.

Wealth from Oceans Flagship scientist Ken Ridgway says the current, called the Tasman Outflow, occurs at an average depth of 800-1,000 metres and may play an important role in the response of the conveyor belt to climate change.

Published this month in Geophysical Research Letters the findings confirm that the waters south of Tasmania form a 'choke-point' linking the major circulation cells in the Southern Hemisphere oceans.

"In each ocean, water flows around anticlockwise pathways or 'gyres' the size of ocean basins," Mr Ridgway says. "These gyres are the mechanism that distribute nutrients from the deep ocean to generate life on the continental shelves and slopes. They also drive the circulation of the world's oceans, creating currents and eddies and help balance the climate system by transferring ocean heat away from the tropics toward the polar region."
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