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Resources
Global Currents and Terrestrial Biomes Map
The Global Education Project - A Graphic Look at the State of the World
Click to image to enlarge and view key including ocean current properties, phytoplankton.
http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/global-ecology.php
Ocean Circulation and Climate
Confused about the global warming debate? This is your chance to get the story straight from scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD. This introductory on-line course presents Earth’s climate system and explores the science and politics of global climate change.
10.0 Global Ocean Circulation
· 10.1 - Ocean Circulation & Climate
· 10.2 - Strawberries in Norway
· 10.3 - The Icelandic Whirlpool
· 10.4 - Origin of the Gulf Stream
· 10.5 - The Deep Atlantic Conveyor
http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange1/10_1.shtml
The Past and Future Ocean Circulation From A Contemporary Perspective
Carl Wunsch, University of Washington Program on Climate Change; Ocean Circulation: Mechanisms and Impacts; Geophysical Monograph Series 173; 10.1029/173GM06.
http://www.uwpcc.washington.edu/documents/PCC/wunsch2007.pdf
Thermohaline Ocean Circulation
"The thermohaline circulation is that part of the ocean circulation which is driven by fluxes of heat and freshwater across the sea surface and subsequent interior mixing of heat and salt. The term thus refers to a driving mechanism. Important features of the thermohaline circulation are deep water formation, spreading of deep waters partly through deep boundary currents, upwelling and near-surface currents, together leading to a large-scale deep overturning motion of the oceans. The large heat transport of the thermohaline circulation makes it important for climate, and its non-linear and potentially abrupt response to forcing have been invoked to explain abrupt glacial climate changes.
Anthropogenic climate change is likely to weaken the thermohaline circulation in future, with some risk of triggering abrupt and/or irreversible changes..."
S. Rahmstorf: Thermohaline Ocean Circulation. In: Encyclopedia of Quaternary
Sciences, Edited by S. A. Elias. Elsevier, Amsterdam 2006. (PDF)
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Book_chapters/rahmstorf_eqs_2006.pdf
Understanding Ocean Climate
"High-resolution computer simulations performed by scientists at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) are helping to understand the inflow of North Atlantic water to the Arctic Ocean and how this influences ocean climate.
The summer of 2007 saw a record retreat in Arctic sea ice, and in general Arctic climate has become steadily warmer since the early 1990s. This has changed both sea ice drift and upper ocean circulation..." Read more from ScienceDaily.com
Article summarizes: The North Atlantic inflow to the Arctic Ocean: high-resolution model study. Journal of Marine Systems, 79, (1-2), 1-22. Study by: Yevgeny Aksenov, Sheldon Bacon, Andrew Coward and George Nurser. (2010)
Abstract available: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/69763/
Ocean temperature at the 100 m depth and sea ice thickness in Sept. 2006 from the 8 km resolution global model. (Credit: NOCS)