A new study by University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science researchers found that the Indian Ocean's Agulhas Current is getting wider rather than strengthening. The findings, which have important implications for global climate change, suggest that intensifying winds in the region may be increasing the turbulence of the current, rather than increasing its flow rate.
Using measurements collected during three scientific cruises to the Agulhas Current, the Indian Ocean's version of the Gulf Stream, researchers estimated the long-term transport of the current leveraging 22 years of satellite data. They found the Agulhas Current has broadened, not strengthened, since the early 1990s, due to more turbulence from increased eddying and meandering.
One of the strongest currents in the world, the Agulhas Current flows along the east coast of South Africa, transporting warm, salty water away from the tropics toward the poles. The Agulhas, which is hundreds of kilometers long and over 2,000-meters deep, transports large amounts of ocean heat and is considered to have an influence not only on the regional climate of Africa, but on global climate as part of the ocean's global overturning circulation.
There's no knowing if the trend will affect the monsoon.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 11 2016, @07:59PM
Maybe you need to be reminded that three years of observations do not establish that there is (or is not) a trend.
Now matter your position on global warming, no matter where you (probably misplaced) faith is, so very many people forget all about what "science" is. FFS, three years of observations of an individual human being may or may not establish some trends. Maybe you'd like to climb inside of some people's minds, and meet the REAL people?
The ocean is vast, and we still don't understand it. But everytime some young "scientist" discovers something new, he wants to write a paper complete with a new law that states mankind has destroyed the world.