New current that transports water to major 'waterfall' discovered in
deep ocean

Date:
July 29, 2020
Source:
University of Rhode Island
Summary:
An international team discovered a previously unrecognized ocean
current that transports water to one of the world's largest
'waterfalls' in the North Atlantic Ocean: the Faroe Bank Channel
Overflow into the deep North Atlantic.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
An international team discovered a previously unrecognized ocean current
that transports water to one of the world's largest "waterfalls" in
the North Atlantic Ocean: the Faroe Bank Channel Overflow into the deep
North Atlantic.

While investigating the pathways that water takes to feed this major
waterfall, the research team identified a surprising path of the cold
and dense water flowing at depth, which led to the discovery of this
new ocean current.


========================================================================== "This new ocean current and the path it takes toward the Faroe Bank
Channel are exciting findings," said Le'on Chafik, the lead author of
the paper published in Nature Communications and a research scientist
at Stockholm University, Sweden.

"The two discoveries reported here, in one of the best studied areas of
the world ocean, is a stark reminder that we still have much to learn
about the Nordic Seas," said co-author Thomas Rossby, emeritus professor
at the URI Graduate School of Oceanography. "This is crucial given the absolutely fundamental role they play in the major glacial-interglacial
climate swings." Previous studies dealing with this deep flow have long assumed that these cold waters, which flow along the northern slope of
the Faroes, turn directly into the Faroe-Shetland Channel (the region
the water flows through before reaching the Faroe Bank Channel). Instead, Chafik and the paper's co-authors show that there exists another path into
the Faroe-Shetland Channel. They show that water can take a longer path
all the way to the continental margin outside Norway before turning south heading toward this major waterfall. "Revealing this newly identified
path from available observations was not a straightforward process and
took us a good deal of time to piece together" said Chafik.

The researchers also found this new path depends on prevailing wind
conditions.

"It seems that the atmospheric circulation plays a major role in
orchestrating the identified flow regimes," added Chafik.

The study further reveals that much of the water that will end up in the
Faroe Bank Channel is not in fact transported along the western side of
the Faroe- Shetland Channel (the region the water flows through before
reaching the Faroe Bank Channel), as previously thought. Instead, most of
this water comes from the eastern side of the Faroe-Shetland Channel where
it is transported by a jet-like and deep-reaching ocean current. "This was
a curious but very exciting finding, especially since we are aware that a
very similar flow structure exists in the Denmark Strait. We are pleased
that we were able to identify this new ocean current both in observations
and a high-resolution ocean general circulation model," said Chafik.

"Because this newly discovered flow path and ocean current play an
important part in the ocean circulation at higher latitudes, its discovery
adds to our limited understanding of the overturning circulation in
the Atlantic Ocean," said Chafik. "This discovery would not have been
possible without many institutional efforts over the years."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Rhode_Island. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Le'on Chafik, Hja'lmar Ha'tu'n, Joakim Kjellsson, Karin Margretha H.

Larsen, Thomas Rossby, Barbara Berx. Discovery of an
unrecognized pathway carrying overflow waters toward the
Faroe Bank Channel. Nature Communications, 2020; 11 (1) DOI:
10.1038/s41467-020-17426-8 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200729204748.htm

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