The link between ocean currents and the Dutch, so called, skating fever

Water in the oceans is not only connected, but it actually flows around like an enormous rubber band. These flows have a huge impact on weather. New York and Madrid are situated at the same distance from the equator, but in New York it can be terribly cold in winter. The typically boring wet winters in the Netherlands (when actually everybody wants to skate desperately  are the result of the Gulf Stream, a warm flow of water originating from the Caribbean which flows as north as North Norway.

Rough figure of the ocean currents, the thermo-haline

circulation. Above is an animation of the ocean currents.

Only the last decade scientists could get a good grip on the surface currents in te oceans. Since a ship lost a container with rubber duckies in 1992, the research speeded up a lot. In the years since the container got lost, these friendly floatees washed ashore in Asia, North- and South America and Europe. Lately, scientists use floating measurement tools with satellite connection to map the ocean currents in much greater detail.

The rubber duckies which fell in the water in January 1992 floated around
the oceans. The duckies wash ashore on all continents since.

Deeper in the oceans are more currents in different directions. It was impossible until now to map all the currents and to find out where all ocean water flows to. Small variations in temperature and salinity are the engine of the ocean circulation. Also prevailing winds like trade winds play a role in driving the ocean currents.

A increasing amount of melt water from the arctic regions could disturb these currents. The level of salinity changes and possibly the water from the Gulf Stream will experience difficulty to sink down in the North Atlantic ocean. Al Gore showed the phenomenon pretty nicely in his 'An Inconvenient Truth'.  If the Gulf Stream would come to a stop, or would cease to flow as North as today, winters in the Netherlands might get a lot colder. This is something skate fanatics are already counting on! But climate experts think that the slow and continuous melt of icecap of Greenland in the next centuries will not have this effect. The Gulf Stream will not stop as can be seen in the animation of Al Gore. It will probably become slightly weaker, not much, but measurable...

More information:
- Oceanographic science done by beachcombers: beachcombersalert.org/RubberDuckies.html
- The book by Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Eric Scigliano about the obsession for rubber ducks which wash ashore and how this obsession changed oceanography for ever: Flotsametrics.com

A part of this text is written in preparation for the upcoming exhibition Climate Stories in Museon, The Hague. This exhibition will open in spring 2013. More information can be found at: klimaatverhalen.nl

De Nederlandse versie van deze blogbijdrage: Oceaanstroming en Elfstedentochten