Scientists Found A Missing Water Mass In The Atlantic Ocean Named Atlantic Equatorial Water

A hitherto unknown water mass in the centre of the Atlantic has been discovered, providing an entirely novel viewpoint on ocean dynamics.

Per Live Science, Atlantic Equatorial Water forms around the equator as ocean currents join distinct bodies of water from the north and south.

The findings were reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The researchers discovered a mixing of waters along the equator in the Pacific and Indian oceans.

It appeared controversial that the equatorial water mass present in the Pacific and Indian oceans but missing in the Atlantic Ocean because equatorial circulation and mixing in the three oceans have some common features, Viktor Zhurbas, an oceanologist and physicist at Moscow’s Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, told Live Science.

The discovery of a new water mass has enabled us to complete (or, at the very least, more properly define) the phenomenological structure of the World Ocean’s basic water masses.

The immense expanse of the ocean is not a homogeneous body of water; instead, it’s an evolving tapestry of interrelated masses and layers that constantly mix and separate due to currents, eddies, and temperature and salinity oscillations.

These separate components, referred to as water masses, bear the stamp of their origins and share distinctive physical attributes such as density and oxygen, nitrate, and phosphate isotope distribution.

To identify these water masses, oceanographers analyze the interaction of salinity and temperature across the ocean — two critical elements that regulate seawater density.

According to the media source, the researchers analyzed the data. They discovered an undiscovered temperature-salinity curve parallel to the curves defining the North and South Atlantic Central seas to the north and south: the Atlantic Equatorial Water.

According to identify the Atlantic Equatorial Water from the South Atlantic Central Water, a very thick web of vertical temperature and salinity profiles spanning the Atlantic Equatorial was required, according to Zhurbas.

Reference- NDTV

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