Earth/Environment
Earth’s iron heart can melt, plus Atlantic weather and more ice thinning in this week’s news
By Science News
Deep ocean jets drive Atlantic weather
Regular weather patterns in the tropical Atlantic are driven by deep ocean currents, not the winds and other atmospheric factors that cause El Ni±o and similar cycles. An international research team now finds evidence that 4.5-year cycles in temperature, precipitation and winds are driven by deep jets in equatorial waters that carry energy upward. These fast-paced currents appear to originate “in the abyss (perhaps as deep as several thousand meters),” the researchers report online May 19 in
Nature
, and vary independently of the seasons. —