{"id":339294,"date":"2025-12-10T11:27:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T11:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/339294\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T11:27:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T11:27:12","slug":"tiny-turbulent-whirls-keep-the-arctic-ocean-flowing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/339294\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny Turbulent Whirls Keep the Arctic Ocean Flowing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/journal\/2576604x\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">AGU Advances<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the coming decades, climate change is likely to lead to a loss of sea ice in and an influx of warmer water to the Arctic Ocean, affecting the ocean\u2019s vertical circulation. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1029\/2024AV001529\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Brown et al.<\/a> recently investigated the forces that drive the Arctic Ocean\u2019s vertical circulation to gain insight into how the circulation might change in the future.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers drew on data from a range of sources, including measurements from shipborne and mooring-based instruments, <a href=\"https:\/\/climatedataguide.ucar.edu\/climate-data\/era-interim\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">ERA-Interim<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/aomip\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Arctic Ocean Model Intercomparison Project<\/a>, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/psc.apl.washington.edu\/nonwp_projects\/PHC\/Climatology.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Polar Science Center Hydrographic Climatology<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Two contrasting factors emerged as the main drivers of vertical circulation as warmer waters flow from the Atlantic Ocean into the Arctic. In the Barents Sea, hitherto the only ice-free part of the Arctic, the ocean loses heat to the atmosphere, causing some of the water to become denser and to sink. Elsewhere, centimeter-sized whirls of turbulence mix in freshwater from rivers and precipitation, resulting in lighter-weight water that remains close to the surface.<\/p>\n<p>As climate change continues to melt sea ice, the balance between these surface fluxes and turbulent mixing is likely to change. More of the ocean surface will be exposed to heat loss to the atmosphere. At the same time, turbulence is likely both to increase and to become more variable. The Arctic Ocean is a source of cold, dense water that feeds the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whoi.edu\/ocean-learning-hub\/ocean-topics\/how-the-ocean-works\/ocean-circulation\/amoc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation<\/a>, or AMOC, a circulation pattern that holds key influence over the weather in western Europe and North America. Determining how changing circulation patterns in the Arctic Ocean will affect the AMOC should be a focus for future research, the authors suggest. (AGU Advances, <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1029\/2024AV001529\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1029\/2024AV001529<\/a>, 2025)<\/p>\n<p>\u2014Saima May Sidik (<a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/saimamay.bsky.social\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">@saimamay.bsky.social<\/a>), Science Writer<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.agu.org\/give-to-agu\/giving?utm_source=Donate_Button_Eos&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=eos_bottom_research_spotlights\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"213\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/donate-today-1024x213.png\" alt=\"A photo of a telescope array appears in a circle over a field of blue along with the Eos logo and the following text: Support Eos\u2019s mission to broadly share science news and research. Below the text is a darker blue button that reads \u201cdonate today.\u201d\" class=\"wp-image-235350\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Citation:\u00a0Sidik, S. M. (2025), Tiny turbulent whirls keep the Arctic Ocean flowing,\u00a0Eos, 106, <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1029\/2025EO250455\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1029\/2025EO250455<\/a>. Published on 8 December 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Text \u00a9 2025. AGU.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/3.0\/us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">CC BY-NC-ND 3.0<\/a><br \/>Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Source: AGU Advances In the coming decades, climate change is likely to lead to a loss of sea&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[188612,188613,64043,64,63,6045,68,75,153718,21842,128,188614],"class_list":{"0":"post-339294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-agu-advances","9":"tag-amoc","10":"tag-arctic-ocean","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-climate","14":"tag-climate-change","15":"tag-environment","16":"tag-ocean-circulation","17":"tag-oceans","18":"tag-science","19":"tag-upwelling"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}