Image: CSIRO ScienceImage 11128 The bathymetry of the Kerguelen Plateau in the Southern Ocean governs the course of the new current part of the global network of ocean currents

Description: Japanese and Australian scientists have discovered a deep ocean current with a volume equivalent to 40 Amazon Rivers near the Kerguelen plateau, in the Indian Ocean sector of the Southern Ocean, 4,200 kilometres south-west of Perth. The current , more than three kilometres below the Ocean's surface, is an important pathway in a global network of ocean currents that influence climate patterns. It carries dense, oxygen-rich water that sinks near Antarctica to the deep ocean basins further north. Without this supply of Antarctic water, the deepest levels of the ocean would have little oxygen. While earlier expeditions had detected evidence of the current system, they were not able to determine how much water the current carried. The joint Japanese-Australian experiment deployed current-meter moorings anchored to the sea floor at depths of up to 4500m. Each mooring reached from the sea floor to a depth of 1000m and measured current speed, temperature and salinity for a tw
Title: CSIRO ScienceImage 11128 The bathymetry of the Kerguelen Plateau in the Southern Ocean governs the course of the new current part of the global network of ocean currents
Credit: http://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/image/11128
Author: division, CSIRO
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