Giant underwater waves affect the ocean’s ability to store carbon

Map of depth-integrated anthropogenic carbon Credit: Laura Cimoli/GLODAP Underwater waves deep below the ocean's surface - some as tall as 500 metres - play an important role in how the ocean stores heat and carbon, according to new research. Turbulence plays a key role in how much carbon and heat gets absorbed by the ocean, and where it gets stored Laura Cimoli An international team of researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, and the University of California San Diego, quantified the effect of these waves and other forms of underwater turbulence in the Atlantic Ocean and found that their importance is not being accurately reflected in the climate models that inform government policy. Most of the heat and carbon emitted by human activity is absorbed by the ocean, but how much it can absorb is dependent on turbulence in the ocean's interior, as heat and carbon are either pushed deep into the ocean or pulled toward the surface. While these underwater waves are already well-known, their importance in heat and carbon transport is not fully understood. The results , reported in the journal AGU Advances , show that turbulence in the interior of oceans is more important for the transport of carbon and heat on a global scale than had been previously imagined. Ocean circulation carries warm waters from the tropics to the North Atlantic, where they cool, sink, and return southwards in the deep ocean, like a giant conveyer belt. The Atlantic branch of this circulation pattern, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), plays a key role in regulating global heat and carbon budgets.