Rivers run to it. (Environment).Eurasian rivers dominate the flow of fresh water into the Arctic Ocean Arctic Ocean, the smallest ocean, c.5,400,000 sq mi (13,986,000 sq km), located entirely within the Arctic Circle and occupying the region around the North Pole. . A new hydrology hydrology, study of water and its properties, including its distribution and movement in and through the land areas of the earth. The hydrologic cycle consists of the passage of water from the oceans into the atmosphere by evaporation and transpiration (or study finds that releases from the six largest of these rivers have increased for some 60 years in near lockstep lock·step n. 1. A way of marching in which the marchers follow each other as closely as possible. 2. A standardized procedure that is closely, often mindlessly followed. Noun 1. with steady arctic increases in surface-air temperatures. Driven by increasing snowmelt snow·melt n. 1. The runoff from melting snow. 2. A period or season when such runoff occurs: streams that flood during snowmelt. and rains, this trend, if it continues, could perturb the northern temperate and arctic climate, argues Bruce J. Peterson of the Marine Biological Laboratory The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is an international center for research and education in biology and ecology. Founded in 1888, the MBL is the oldest independent marine laboratory in the Americas, taking advantage of a coastal setting in the Cape Cod village of Woods Hole, in Woods Hole, Mass., and his colleagues in the Dec. 13, 2002 Science. "It's a worrisome thing," he says. Ordinarily, cold, dense water in the extreme North Atlantic sinks to great depths and flows southward through the Atlantic. Like a hydrologic conveyor belt, this massive flow forces a comparable return of warm surface water into the Arctic. Ever-larger discharges of fresh water into the Arctic Ocean--as would be expected with continued global warming--could hamper formation of the dense undersea current that drives the conveyor belt. That, in turn, could diminish the return flow of warm water into the Arctic, thereby cooling high northern latitudes, Peterson says. "It's a bit of a paradox," he concedes, "that global warming might cause regional cooling."--J.R. |
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