Climate of Our Future

Climate Crisis Coalition

Australia Discovers Ocean Current ‘Missing Link’
By Michael Byrnes, Reuters, August 15, 2007
“Australian scientists have discovered a giant underwater current that is one of the last missing links of a system that connects the world’s oceans and helps govern global climate. New research shows that a current sweeping past Australia’s southern island of Tasmania toward the South Atlantic is a previously undetected part of the world climate system’s engine-room, said scientist Ken Ridgway. The Southern Ocean, which swirls around Antarctica, has been identified in recent years as the main lung of global climate, absorbing a third of all carbon dioxide taken in by the world’s oceans… The newly discovered Tasman Outflow, which sweeps past Tasmania at an average depth of 800-1,000 meters (2,600 to 3,300 feet), is classed as a ’supergyre’ that links the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic southern hemisphere ocean basins, the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization said in a statement today.”