ocean currents Archives - State of the Planet

sediment cores on table

After a Long Wait, Expedition 383 Drills its First Seafloor Core

It took six days to sail to Point Nemo, the most inaccessible point of the ocean on this planet, to drill a sample from the ocean floor.

by |July 11, 2019

Tapping into Ocean Power

The oceans of the world are a vast unexploited source of clean, reliable and predictable renewable energy. Could this energy help replace fossil fuels and be a solution to climate change?

by |February 14, 2017
Meltwater rivers on the greenland ice sheet. M. Tedesco/Columbia University

In Greenland, Exactly Where Meltwater Enters the Ocean Matters

In southern Greenland in summer, rivers have been streaming off the ice sheet, pouring cold fresh water into the fjords. A new study tracks where that meltwater goes—with surprising results.

by |April 25, 2016

Exploring Ocean Turbulence: 2016 Sloan Fellow Ryan Abernathey

When you examine the behavior of the global oceans closely—really closely, at scales smaller than 100 kilometers—eddies and jets and fronts start to appear. For Ryan Abernathey, this is where ocean physics gets interesting.

by |February 23, 2016
Jeroen vanderLubbe examines the first cores brought up by the team aboard the Joides Resolution.

6 Million Years of Sediment, Studded with Tiny Fossils

Sidney Hemming and her team have started examining their first sediment core from off southern Africa. It appears to contain about 6 million years of history.

by |February 12, 2016

Setting Off for Two Months at Sea

Sidney Hemming and the scientists aboard the JOIDES Resolution conduct the final preparations for their research cruise off southern Africa and introduce a girls’ school group from Mauritius to science at sea.

by |February 3, 2016

Uncovering the Stories of Southern Africa’s Climate Past

Sidney Hemming is preparing to spend two months at sea studying global ocean circulation and southern Africa’s climate variability over the past 5 million years.

by |January 27, 2016
Deploying a CTD and LADCP to explore the ocean floor. (Photo: S. Whelan)

Exploring Rugged Hills & Turbulent Waters 4,500 Meters Down

Aboard a ship at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, scientists are studying how the deepest and coldest waters mix with shallower waters, gaining heat in the process.

by |October 20, 2015

New Book Explores Link Between Climate and Ocean Currents

Wallace Broecker is a climate scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who has helped shape our understanding of how the ocean moves heat around the globe, and how this so-called “great ocean conveyor” can switch the climate to a radically different state. Many scientists used to think that only periodic changes in earth’s orbit—so-called Milankovitch cycles–… read more

by |April 13, 2010