Projected Slowdown In Deep Ocean Current w/i 30 Years Largely Ignored, Despite Terrifying Impacts
The term "abyssal ocean" conjures up ominous images, and rightly so — the literal deep sea abyss is extremely dark, at or near freezing temperatures, and full of peril. In the deepest parts of the abyssal ocean, which is defined as the ocean layer between 4,000 to 6,000 meters deep, light is so limited that photosynthesis is not even possible, meaning there are no plants. Because the animals which live there must survive in harsh conditions, they have evolved otherworldly, bizarre adaptations. But the most terrifying thing about the abyssal ocean may be the fact that normal life on Earth is dependent on the way water moves through it. If that circulation changes, the repercussions could be devastating for all life on Earth: food chain disruptions, weather patterns drastically changing, and ocean life finding itself suddenly unbalanced.
Now a new study from the scientific journal Nature reveals that this scenario may soon come to pass. Climate change is melting ice in the Antarctic; that, in turn, is slowing down the circulation of deep ocean water within this region. If this process continues at its current pace for another 30 years, it will wreak havoc on Earth. Using a sophisticated computer model developed over three years, the scientists led by researchers at the University of New South Wales calculated the impact of melting Antarctic ice on deep ocean currents within the abyssal layer. Using a transient forced high-resolution coupled ocean–sea-ice model, they found that if climate change continues at its current pace, abyssal warming would "accelerate over the next 30 years."
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Other oceanic currents are being disrupted by climate change too. In 2021, a study in the journal Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology that the Kuroshio Current and Extension (KCE) is warming, adjusting its latitudinal position northward, and possibly increasing the amount of warm water that it moves north in the process as a result of climate change. The KCE forms the main western boundary current as part of the North Pacific ocean gyre (meaning a large system of circulating currents) that spans from the North American Pacific Coast to Polynesia.
"The Kuroshio Current Extension is home to some of the highest biodiversity (number of organisms) in the world ocean today," Adriane R. Lam, a paleoceanographer and Binghamton University postdoctoral fellow who co-authored the study, wrote to Salon at the time. "This is one reason why Japan's fishing industry is so robust." These fisheries would be severely and negatively affected by a disruption to KCE. Similarly, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) for short was found by a recent study to be at its weakest in 1,600 years. If AMOC shuts down, temperatures will drop all over Europe as the number of storms increases; rising sea levels along the North American eastern seaboard will cause millions to flee their homes; and changing weather conditions will lead to food shortages in India, West Africa and South America.
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https://www.salon.com/2023/04/11/global-warming-is-disrupting-an-antarctic-current-system-that-life-on-earth-relies-on/
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