Adam Vaughan / EPA
Humanity is changing the circulation of the ocean. “We will not stand. And we are not realizing that.”
Global warming may be changing variables that alter the circulation of water masses in the oceans and even cause a
Biologist, lead researcher at the Portuguese Institute of Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA), president of the Portuguese Oceanography Association (Apocean), Miguel Santos spoke to Lusa agency about the launch of floats of a global ocean observation network, a project called Argo
The expert explained that ocean currents form at poles and happen due to differences in water density, which depends on temperature and salinity. It’s the call “Thermoalline circulation”a movement in all oceans where the colder and driest waters sink, the hottest and sweetest rise. This movement is fundamental for climate regulation on the planet, but admits the researcher at the Center for Sea Sciences at the University of Algarve may be changing due to global warming.
First of all because ice is a heat reflector and decreasing the ocean’s ability to gain heat, and the glaciers’ defrost leads to more freshwater to enter the oceans, which “does not sink so much and there is no such circulation in depth.” Referindo estudos que indicam que a corrente termoalina is decreasing in intensity
“We are more or less in the same latitude as New York. Why does it snow in New York and not snow in Lisbon? ”
A If this current decreases in intensity, it comes less heat to Europe and can lead to more rigorous winters and glaciations.
AMOC (Atlantic Southern OverTurning Circulation). Temperatures in Europe can go down significantly and Brussels can reach the 21 ° C negativeif the current collapse or weakens, a study released in June of the actual Meteorological Institute of the Netherlands and the University of Utrecht, and published in Geophysical Research Letters.
“People don’t know what’s going on at sea”
Miguel Santos said it is difficult to predict if and when this can happen – but we humans, “are not going to hold on. And we are not realizing it.”
“There are those who say that this circulation can stop, I do not believe it, what is believed is that it is decreasing in intensity,” which can cause several changes in the climate, “because the climate system is very associated with the ocean.”
What the researcher has no doubt is that the action of humanity is changing the climate and that the imbalance can be dangerous for humansthat they can one day disappear, that the planet will change.
The researcher is not alarmist or even pessimistic. When questioned by Lusa if the high temperatures of seawater this summer are a consequence of global warming, it responds to “natural variability”. But no longer see how natural how oceans, overfish, plastics are treated. “The sea has always been seen as a place where they could be sent, because it is not seen.”
Miguel Santos diz que a APOCEAN quer divulgar mais a oceanografia, chegar à população, aos jovens. “There are few oceanographers and we have a huge sea. And we have no money to go to the sea, the open sea and is almost unknown,” he laments, concluding: “In fact people do not know what is going on in the sea, and we have to streamline it.”
So, by ignorance, are human beings destroying the sea? Miguel Santos sorri. “It will take it. We are not going to hold on. And we are not realizing that.”
