Events in Stratosphere Can Affect Earth’s Entire Climate
Events high in the upper atmosphere can cause massive shifts in the behavior even of deep ocean currents, according to new research published in Nature Geoscience.
The ocean is very important to the climate, acting as it does as a vast storage and transport mechanism for heat. But the oceans have tremendous mass compared even to the relatively dense atmospheric layer that rests upon them (the troposphere). Just the upper ten metres of ocean exert as much pressure on the waters beneath as the entire atmosphere does on the ocean’s surface. While it’s evident just how much the troposphere can affect the oceans even so – winds not only generate mighty ocean waves and swells, but can on occasion hold back the tides, affect currents etc – such things are mostly seen on the surface. The idea of events up in the wispy stratosphere reaching right down into the ocean deeps is certainly a counterintuitive one on the face of it.