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	CRU Information Sheet no. 7: Thermohaline circulation
		The density of sea water is controlled by its temperature (thermo) and its salinity (haline), and the circulation driven by density differences is thus called the thermohaline circulation.
		The critical part of the thermohaline circulation (THC) is the sinking in the North Atlantic Ocean.
		It is warmer in the North Atlantic because warm water is brought by the thermohaline circulation from the tropical and South Atlantic.
	www.cru.uea.ac.uk /cru/info/thc (792 words)

	Thermohaline circulation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Changes in the thermohaline circulation are thought to have significant impacts on the earth's radiation budget.
		Insofar as the thermohaline circulation governs the rate at which deep waters are exposed to the surface, it may also play an important role in determining the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
		Large influxes of low density meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet is thought to have led to a disruption of deep water formation and subsidence in the extreme North Atlantic and caused the climate period in Europe known as the Younger Dryas.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Thermohaline_circulation (1432 words)

	Thermohaline Circulation - Fact Sheet by Stefan Rahmstorf
		It has been shown that in the long-term equilibrium the strength of the thermohaline circulation in models depends on the turbulent mixing coefficient [7], and that the energy required for this turbulent mixing comes to a large extent from the moon via tidal currents ([8]).
		Salinity is involved in a positive feedback: higher salinity in the deep water formation area enhances the circulation, and the circulation in turn transports higher salinity waters into the deep water formation regions (which tend to be regions of net precipitation, i.e., freshwater would accumulate and surface salinity would drop if the circulation stopped).
		Three major circulation modes were indentified: a warm mode similar to the present-day Atlantic, a cold mode with NADW forming south of Iceland in the Irminger Sea, and a switched-off mode ([23]).
	www.pik-potsdam.de /~stefan/thc_fact_sheet.html (2387 words)

	Abrupt Climate Change FAQ
		Thermohaline circulation is a global ocean circulation pattern that distributes water and heat both vertically, through the water column, and horizontally across the globe.
		Thermohaline circulation is driven by the sinking of cold, salty water at high latitudes.
		While a shutdown of thermohaline circulation is unlikely to occur in the next century, scientists have recently found that freshwater inputs have already caused measurable "freshening" of North Atlantic surface waters over the past 40 years.
	www.ucsusa.org /global_warming/science/abrupt-climate-change-faq.html (1811 words)

	Thermohaline circulation
		Although this global thermohaline circulation has been vigorous since the end of the ice age, the global conveyor is vulnerable to significant and rapid changes.
		Because the circulation is driven by the varying densities of water, it can become sluggish, or perhaps even stagnant, when those densities change.
		One extremely important attribute of thermohaline circulation is that it carries oxygenated water to the deep ocean.
	www.killerinourmidst.com /THC.html (1602 words)

	Fact-sheet Thermohaline Circulation (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-24)
		The thermohaline circulation is a global ocean circulation.
		Whether or not the thermohaline circulation will be affected by human induced global warming is strongly dependent on the future temperature distribution and fresh water supply over the North Atlantic region.
		Figure 1, Figure 2 and Figure 3 illustrate the difference between reduced and collapsed thermohaline circulation as seen by global warming experiments using a zonally averaged climate model (Stocker and Schmittner, 1997).
	www.climate.unibe.ch /~christof/div/fact4thc.html (1117 words)

	Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation (D3) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-24)
		Furthermore, as the transport of carbon by the Atlantic thermohaline circulation plays a significant role in the global carbon budget, thermohaline circulation variations may contribute to changes in the oceanic carbon transport and hence indirectly affect the atmospheric CO content.
		The upper branch of the thermohaline circulation involves the spreading in the Atlantic of intermediate and subtropical mode waters originating from the Indian, Pacific and Southern Oceans (Gordon, 1986; Schmitz, 1995).
		Understanding the physics of thermohaline circulation variability, including documentation of observed penetration of the anthropogenic tracer signal into the deep ocean, has bearings on all three of the Anthropogenic Climate Change foci, in particular it is related to A1.
	www.clivar.org /publications/other_pubs/iplan/iip/pd3.htm (6808 words)

	GeoSci 245: The Thermohaline Circulation
		It is a global and abyssal circulation driven by differences in ocean density which is a function of both temperature (thermal) and salinity (haline).
		The first modern theory of the abyssal thermohaline circulation was developed in a series of papers by Stommel (1958) and Stommel and Arons (1960a,b).
		The abyssal circulation is composed of a single layer that is steady and geostrophic everywhere in the interior of the ocean, except at the western boundary where a narrow, intense boundary current is permitted to depart from geostrophy.
	geosci.uchicago.edu /~gidon/geosci245/thermohal/thermohaline.html (1980 words)

	1.1. Conveyor Belt and the Thermohaline Circulation (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-24)
		The Broecker [1987] and Gordon [1986] descriptions of the thermohaline circulation as a conveyor belt graphically emphasized the interconnections amongst the waters of the world's oceans.
		The thermohaline circulation in the Atlantic consists of two parts: 1) northward flow of warm water (the upper limb) (some of this water contributes to the production of new deep water in the high latitudes of the North Atlantic); and 2) southward export of newly formed deep water (Figure 1) (the lower limb).
		The thermohaline circulation differs from the wind-driven circulation in that the former is forced by density differences that are controlled by changes in temperature and salinity.
	www.agu.org /revgeophys/fine00/node2.html (241 words)

	Stochastic Resonance in the Thermohaline Circulation (ResearchIndex)
		An important part of this variability might be related to transitions between stable equilibrium states of the ocean thermohaline circulation.
		Although the relation between the recorded climatic changes and the dynamical transitions of the thermohaline circulation seems well established, the mechanism and magnitude of the forcings that could generate such transitions are still unknown....
		4 Bifurcations of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation in res..
	citeseer.ist.psu.edu /135301.html (522 words)

	Thermohaline Circulation
		The Thermohaline Circulation (THC) is the part of the large-scale global circulation which is driven by horizontal density gradients (to be distinguished from the basin gyres which are driven by the wind).
		Deep water is drawn gradually to the surface by the wind-forced Ekman suction in the tropics and in the Southern Ocean, as well as by mixing with less dense waters.
		The THC is crucial to the maintenance of Europe's temperate climate, as the North Atlantic Current transports large amounts of warm surface water northwards toward the convection regions.
	www.soc.soton.ac.uk /JRD/csp1_th3/index.php (255 words)

	Thermohaline Circulation
		The circulation process itself is known as thermohaline circulation, or ocean overturn.
		The deepwater current that twists and swirls through all the world’s oceans is driven primarily by the circulation of the North Atlantic.
		If the North Atlantic circulation pattern were altered, average temperatures over much of the U.S. could drop by 5 degrees Fahrenheit and by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit in northern Europe and northern Asia.
	www.lmvp.org /Waterline/winter2003/thermohaline.htm (355 words)

	CLIMATOLOGY: ON THE THERMOHALINE CIRCULATION
		In general, a "thermohaline circulation" is a vertical circulation induced by the cooling of surface waters in a large water body, this cooling causing convective overturning and consequent mixing of waters.
		This thermohaline circulation is responsible for much of the total oceanic poleward heat transport in the Atlantic, peaking at about 1.2 +- 0.3 PW (1 PW equals 10^(15) watts) at 24 degrees N (1).
		The paleoclimate data and the model results also indicate that the stability of the thermohaline circulation depends on the mean climate state.
	scienceweek.com /2004/sc041015-1.htm (1700 words)

	February 19th class notes
		It is because the water flow is driven by seawater density which is a function of temperature (thermo-) and salinity (halo- with halo dating back to the days when salinity was determined by chloride analysis and chlorine is a halogen).
		They found to everyone's amassment and interest that the tritium input had moved deeper and southerly; this occurred because the water is moving by thermohaline circulation owing to its increased density.
		Thermohaline circulation drives the major water masses; injections areas can be determined from measurements of tritium, a gas from leftover from the nuclear testing program.
	www.duedall.fit.edu /ocn1010/notfeb19.htm (2073 words)

	Great ocean conveyor belt - Climate Change (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-24)
		The global conveyor belt thermohaline circulation is driven primarily by the formation and sinking of deep water (from around 1500m to the Antarctic bottom water overlying the bottom of the ocean) in the Norwegian Sea.
		This circulation is thought to be responsible for the large flow of upper ocean water from the tropical Pacific to the Indian Ocean through the Indonesian Archipelogo.
		The two counteracting forcings operating in the North Atlantic control the conveyor belt circulation: (1) the thermal forcing (high-latitude cooling and the low-latitude heating) which drives a polar southward flow; and (2) haline forcing (net high-latitude freshwater gain and low-latitude evaporation) which moves in the opposite direction.
	www.grida.no /climate/vital/32.htm (300 words)

	Stability of the Thermohaline Circulation in a simple coupled model - Lohmann, Gerdes, Chen (ResearchIndex)
		Abstract: In an analytical study the stability of the thermohaline circulation with respect to freshwater perturbations in high latitudes is investigated.
		The box model provides a qualitative understanding of how the thermohaline circulation is affected by feedback mechanisms associated with changes in atmospheric transports of heat and moisture.
		46.8%: Stability of the Thermohaline Circulation in analytical and..
	citeseer.ist.psu.edu /lohmann96stability.html (280 words)

	Sea Water Density and Thermohaline Circulation (Main reference Chapter 8)
		The general deep circulation of the ocean begins with deep convection, or mixing, drivenby cooling of surface waters in the northern
		]Circulation caused by changes in temperature and salinity, and thus density, is called thermohaline circulation.
		The circulation of the ocean could change in the future, effecting climate.
	www.geo.umn.edu /courses/1006/spring2005/lecturenotes/11%20Density%20and%20Thermohaline.htm (1535 words)

	Citebase - Dynamics of the Thermohaline Circulation under Wind forcing
		The ocean thermohaline circulation, also called meridional overturning circulation, is caused by water density contrasts.
		This circulation has large capacity of carrying heat around the globe and it thus affects the energy budget and further affects the climate.
		This averaging principle provides convergence results and comparison estimates between the original thermohaline circulation and the averaged thermohaline circulation, where the wind forcing is replaced by its time average.
	citebase.eprints.org /cgi-bin/citations?id=oai:arXiv.org:math/0108085 (787 words)

	The CALVIN BOOKSHELF Climate Collection
		After a rearrangement of the ocean circulation was forced by North America connecting with South America about 3 million years ago, there was major climate change in Africa, as evidenced by the repeated speciation of antelopes between 2.9 and 2.5 million years ago.
		But this, at present, has no known mechanism while the ocean circulation has known vulnerabilities in the northern North Atlantic Ocean; also oceans and ice sheets have "memory" on the time scale of centuries, unlike the constituents of weather systems, and so they are better candidates for "chattering" between extremes.
		An ocean circulation mode change might, of course, trigger a rearrangement of the atmospheric circulation cells -- say, a two- or four-cell version of the usual three cells per hemisphere (air rising at the equator and 60, sinking at 30 and at the poles).
	williamcalvin.com /bookshelf/climate.htm (8304 words)

	Abrupt Climate Change Paleo Perspective Story- Mechanisms- Thermohaline & Vegetation
		In the North Atlantic this circulation transports warm and salty water from the tropics to the north.
		At certain times in the past, such as the Younger Dryas, the volume of water in the thermohaline circulation was reduced and the sites of deep water formation in the North Atlantic shifted southward.
		Often called a conveyor belt because of its northward transport at the surface, and southward return flow in the abyss in the Atlantic, the ocean thermohaline circulation system is a slow, three-dimensional pattern of flow involving the surface and deep oceans around the world.
	www.ncdc.noaa.gov /paleo/abrupt/story3.html (619 words)

	Energy Citations Database (ECD) - Energy and Energy-Related Bibliographic Citations (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-24)
		Some of the interactions and feedbacks between the atmosphere, thermohaline circulation, and sea ice are illustrated using a simple process model.
		It is found that the addition of sea ice introduces feedbacks that have a destabilizing influence on the thermohaline circulation: Sea ice insulates the ocean from the atmosphere, creating colder air temperatures at high latitudes, which cause larger atmospheric eddy heat and moisture transports and weaker oceanic heat transports.
		The results indicate that generally in colder climates, the presence of sea ice may lead to a significant destabilization of the thermohaline circulation.
	www.osti.gov /energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=335308 (324 words)

	THERMOHALINE CIRCULATION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
		Reproduction of Eastern Mediterranean deep and bottom waters in the MERMAIDS MOM model [1] (Cox-Bryan model, code MOM 1.0, 1/4 degrees resolution, 31 levels, annually periodic forcing of temperature and salinity in the surface layer) was investigated by comparing model-simulated distributions of the transient tracer CFC-12 with observations for this tracer [2].
		1 shows the model circulation at mid-depth for the tuned model; the strong cyclonic circulation in the north-west of the Ionian Basin is among the features the model resorts to in order to achieve downward transfer of the waters overflowing from the Adriatic.
		LIW formed between Crete and Cyprus is dispersed in baroclinic eddies reaching both the Adriatic in the East and the Gulf of Lions in the west where it helps to form deep waters.
	www.imbc.gr /imbc/biblio_serv/mast/X0046_179.html (783 words)

	Global Circulation (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-24)
		Global Circulation of the Atmosphere: Conference Caltech 2004...
		Numerical study of glacial and meltwater global ocean thermohaline conveyor...
		An Efficient 3-D Model for Global Circulation, Transport and Chemistry by Eduard...
	www.scienceoxygen.com /earth/53.html (185 words)

	Ice Age Ocean Circulation Reacted To, Did Not Cause, Climate Change At Glacial Boundaries (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-24)
		Thermohaline (heat and salt) ocean circulation changes were found to have occurred 1,000-3,000 years after carbon shifts in each case.
		The ocean’s circulation system amplifies the effect of the sun’s heat through warmth brought to high latitudes by the Gulf Stream, whose saltiness affects how fast it sinks and begins the deep water arm of the global ocean “conveyor belt” circulation back to the South.
		Ocean circulation changes “amplified” the climate trends that started the advance of continental ice sheets 70,000 years ago, making it colder in the high latitudes, as well as those that caused the retreat of ice sheets that ended the most recent ice age about 15,000 years ago, making it warmer.
	www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2005/04/050428180401.htm (691 words)

	Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis
		In the oceanic component of climate models, ocean current patterns are represented significantly better in models of higher resolution in large part because ocean current systems (including mesoscale eddies), ocean variability (including ENSO events), and the thermohaline circulation (and other vertical mixing processes) and topography which greatly influence the ocean circulation, can be better represented.
		In a few model calculations, a large rate of increase in the radiative forcing of the planet is enough to cause the ocean’s global thermohaline circulation almost to disappear, though in some experiments it reappears given sufficiently long integration times (see Chapter 7, Section 7.3.7 and Chapter 9, 9.3.4.3).
		We need appropriate observations of the thermohaline circulation, and its natural variations, to compare with model simulations (see Chapter 9, Section 9.3.4.3; see also Chapter 7, Section 7.6 and Chapter 8, Section 8.5.2.2).
	www.pnl.gov /aisu/pubs/eemw/papers/ipccreports/workinggroup1/508.htm (790 words)

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