2019_programme: ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE IN ARCTIC: AN ANOMALOUS GULF STREAM HEATING AND SHIFT TO GREENLAND DUE TO OCEAN POLLUTION BY RAINBOW OIL FILM

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  • Session: 03. Acoustic Monitoring of Ocean Environments and Processes: Biology, Ecology, Geophysics and Man-made activities
    Organiser(s): Ratilal Purnima, Miksis-Olds Jennifer
  • Lecture: ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE IN ARCTIC: AN ANOMALOUS GULF STREAM HEATING AND SHIFT TO GREENLAND DUE TO OCEAN POLLUTION BY RAINBOW OIL FILM
    Paper ID: 1350
    Author(s): Bjørnø Irina, Grishin Mikhail, Pershin Sergey Pershin
    Presenter: Bjørnø Irina
    Presentation type: oral
    Abstract: An anomalous water heating – up to 21 0C – and ~200 km shift of the Gulf Stream to Greenland near New England coasts were observed in summer-fall of 2011. To explain this phenomenon a new physical mechanism is proposed and discussed. It is shown that the main consequence of the Deepwater Horizon (British Petroleum – BP) disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is oil rainbow slick or film formation over huge Gulf area of a hundred thousand square kilometers which has conserved the solar energy inside water and increased its temperature.\nWe have shown that inertial “sliding” of Gulf Stream to Greenland as a result of strong drop of water viscosity in the vicinity of specific temperature 19-20°C which was observed in summer-fall 2011. Actually, at this temperature a several-fold reduction in sea water shear viscosity was observed earlier in turbulent flow. \nWe have suggested that water viscosity drop can be caused by thermally induced conversion of H2O para/ortho spin isomers inside a turbulent vortex which formed during eastward turn of the Gulf Stream.
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  • Corresponding author: Dr Bjørnø Irina
    Affiliation: N/A
    Country: Denmark
    e-mail:

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