Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey have recently published a study that looked back 3 million years at the impacts of the North Atlantic Ocean’s Greenland-Scotland Ridge on surface water temperature. The research provided a new way of looking at the impacts of underwater ridges on the ocean’s circulation system.
Underwater ridges can trap the flow of cold water at the bottom of the ocean, slowing down the ocean circulation pattern and the flow of warm surface water. Warm water on the ocean’s surface makes the formation of sea ice difficult. With less ice present to reflect the sun, surface water will absorb more sunlight and continue to warm.
“Sea-surface temperatures in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans were much warmer during the mid-Pliocene warm period than they are today, but climate models so far have been unable to fully understand and account for the cause of this large scale of warming,” said USGS scientist Marci Robinson. “Our research suggests that a lower height of the Greenland-Scotland Ridge during this geologic age was a contributor to the increase of poleward heat transport.”
Armed with this new understanding of ridge height variations and their impacts on ocean temperatures, scientists will be better able to better model and predict the role of seafloor surfaces on ocean circulation and related surface temperature change. With further detailed models scientists will be able to better understand the earth’s current and future conditions.
