OCEAN ENERGY AND CLIMATE   Climate driven ocean currents move heat energy in the oceans and so are intimately related to the mechanisms of climate and consequently climate change. Changing ocean temperatures affect weather and rainfall distribution, lead to melting ice-caps and sea level rise. Climate driven currents of warm equatorial seawater can damage the marine ecology including bleaching coral reefs in the Great Barrier Reef. Ocean currents transport heat from the equator to the poles. Warm water melts sea ice and glaciers, and reduces ice thickness causing sea level rise. Specifically the Gulf Stream is melting the Greenland Ice Shelf, which is diluting the salinity of the North Atlantic. This dilution slows the formation of dense ‘deep water’ and hence the global ocean circulation system. Changed ocean circulation is associated with the rapid onset of Interglacial Ice Ages and is widely thought to be the cause of abrupt climate change.   LaRosa has proposed placing arrays of ocean current turbines in the Gulf Stream to slow the northward transport of heat and so slow climate change while generating 14GW of renewable energy to make the project viable.
EnGen Institute 1992-2017
  The Western Pacific Warm Pool is the main source of water vapour which amplifies Climate Change.     The South Pacific Gyre drives hot seawater over the Great Barrier Reef increasing coral bleaching.  
OCEAN HEAT TRANSPORT
I  N   S  T  I  T  U   T  E
LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS
TOTAL SUSTAINABILITY
GENERATIVE ENGINEERING OF ENGINEERED ENVIRONMENTS FOR LIFE SUPPORT
Western Pacific Warm Pool Great Barrier Reef heated by Sth Pacific Equatorial Current NEXT NEXT