Wednesday April 9, 2025
WLRN —
A sprawling, slow-moving system of ocean currents circulating in the Atlantic that help regulate the earth’s temperature is set to deliver a blob of warmer, saltier water off the U.S. coast, according to a new study published in Nature last month.
Over the next decade, scientists warn that as that water persists, sea levels could rise even more and the current could change.
What’s not yet clear is by how much, said Leah Chomiak, lead author on the study conducted by the University of Miami and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s cooperative institute for marine and atmospheric research on Virginia Key.
”If it mimics what happened 20 years prior, which we know now is kind of saying ‘yes,’ then we can expect at least a decade or so of increase in ocean temperature and increase in salinity,” she said.