This has several implications for the deep-water turnover (roughly 50 years) and the vulnerability to climate change and deep-water warming.
Ocean thermal energy could also be harnessed to produce electricity utilizing the temperature difference between cold deep water and warm surface water.
Globally, warming of deep water is by far the most dominant in the Southern Ocean, particularly near the sea floor where the AABW influence is strongest (Purkey and Johnson 2010; Rhein et al. 2013).
Driven by stronger winds resulting from climate change, ocean waters in the Southern Ocean are mixing more powerfully, so that relatively warm deep water rises to the surface and eats away at the underside of the ice.
Passing over the warm, deep water of the Loop Current allowed accelerated development, and the cyclone reached its peak winds of 70 mph (115 km/h), just shy of hurricane strength.
That means the surface water is cooler and saltier than it was previously was, and deeper water is warmer and less salty than it previously was.
Confidential documents obtained by the Guardian show how in December 2017, environment minister Josh Frydenberg endorsed the installation of several giant fans which are meant to reduce the temperature of the ocean by mixing cooler deeper water with warmer shallow water.
On the other hand, numerical model simulations (e.g., Kusahara and Hasumi 2013) suggest that sea-ice production in the coastal polynyas controls the onshore intrusion of warm Circumpolar Deep Water and thus melting of the ice shelves.
The biggest driver of ice loss is circumpolar deep water (CDW), a mass of warm extra-salty water that has been increasingly pushed under floating ice shelves by stronger polar westerly currents.
Because the outflow of cold deep water has diminished, the influx of warm surface water that usually replaces it also has to have declined.
The government keeps saying the codding quota is increasing, but not for us – they may have stayed out in the deep water as we've had a warm winter.
