The surface of the oceans is warming, but there must be lots of cold water in the depths. Couldn’t we just stick a giant egg whisk down there and stir things up a bit to solve the warming problem?
Eric Kvaalen
Les Essarts-le-Roi, France
Advertisement
The cold water at depth is denser than the warm water higher up, and therefore it requires energy to mix the layers. If you bring cold water up using energy, it will then fall right back down to the depths unless it is mixed with warm water. Obviously, to have a noticeable effect, it would require huge amounts of energy input. This, of course, would be a huge problem.
Alice Kay
via Facebook
I used to wonder about this too. I once thought that a telescopic Archimedes screw – an ancient kind of water pump – that was a couple of hundred metres long and powered by wind turbines mounted on ships might give us some extra breathing space to sort out destructive weather patterns, which are based on ocean currents.
But then I looked at how much water we would need to shift, and how big the oceans are, and my maths wasn’t up to working out how many thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of these screws we would need.
That’s not to mention the inevitable damage to marine life, the dangerous exchange of gases that are down there, the exposed nature of where these screws would need to be situated and the over-optimistic hope that somehow saline water and fresh water will decide to stay where they are put.
John Hayes
via Facebook
Making the oceans a homogeneous temperature would switch off the great currents that circulate seawater around the globe.
This would be disastrous to much sea life, as many species are adapted to certain temperatures, and nutrients and oxygen are transported on such currents.
It would also cause huge climatic effects on land, as the currents transport warmth and moisture from the tropics towards the polar regions.
Kevin Parker
via Twitter
Rather than a whisk, the answer, of course, is a supergiant version of the bubble blowers found in fish tanks.
To answer this question – or ask a new one – email lastword@newscientist.com.
Questions should be scientific enquiries about everyday phenomena, and both questions and answers should be concise. We reserve the right to edit items for clarity and style. Please include a postal address, daytime telephone number and email address.
Â鶹´«Ã½ retains total editorial control over the published content and reserves all rights to reuse question and answer material that has been submitted by readers in any medium or in any format.