Ocean Circulation Plays an Important Role in Absorbing Carbon from the Atmosphere
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- Written by:
- Ellen T. Gray
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- Produced by:
- Kathryn Mersmann
- View full credits
The oceans play a significant role in absorbing greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, and heat from the atmosphere. This absorption can help mitigate the early effects of human-emissions of carbon dioxide.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation acts as a conveyor belt of ocean water from Florida to Greenland. Along the journey north, water near the surface absorbs greenhouse gases, which sink down as the water cools near Greenland. In this way, the ocean effectively buries the gases deep below the surface.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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Writer
- Ellen T. Gray (NASA/HQ) [Lead]
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Scientist
- Anastasia Romanou (Columbia University)
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Producer
- Kathryn Mersmann (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) [Lead]
Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Related Pages
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ID: 11003 Produced Video
Excerpt from "Dynamic Earth"
Read moreA giant explosion of magnetic energy from the sun, called a coronal mass ejection, slams into and is deflected completely by the Earth's powerful magnetic field. The sun also continually sends out streams of light and radiation energy. Earth's atmosphere acts like a radiation shield, blocking quite a bit of this energy.Much of the radiation energy that makes it through is reflected back into space by clouds, ice and snow and the energy that remains helps to drive the Earth system, powering a remarkable planetary engine — the climate. It becomes the energy that feeds swirling wind and ocean currents as cold air and surface waters move toward the equator and warm air and water moves toward the poles — all in an attempt to equalize temperatures around the world.A jury appointed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Science magazine has selected "Excerpt from Dynamic Earth" as the winner of the 2013 NSF International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge for the Video category. This animation will be highlighted in the February 2014 special section of Science and will be hosted on ScienceMag.org and NSF.govThis animation was selected for the Computer Animation Festival's Electronic Theater at the Association for Computer Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH), a prestigious computer graphics and technical research forum. This is an excerpt from the fulldome, high-resolution show 'Dynamic Earth: Exploring Earth's Climate Engine.' The Dynamic Earth dome show was selected as a finalist in the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival Science Media Awards under the category "Best Immersive Cinema - Fulldome". ||
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