Saturday, April 30, 2011

Deserts in the ocean

I recently read an article talking about how ocean deserts are growing.  The first thing to learn is: what is an ocean desert.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), part of an ocean becomes a desert when it becomes barren of surface sea life.

In 2008, NOAA announced that "Between 1998 and 2007, these expanses of saltwater with low surface plant life in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans grew by 15 percent or 6.6 million square kilometers."

The saltiness of an area of an ocean has an impact on sea life.  And the intensity of the water cycle [the cycle by which seawater evaporates, rains down, and then evaporates again] affects the salinity of the ocean.  As atmospheric temperatures rise the intensity of the water cycle increases, making areas of the ocean more salty. 

So if global warming is correct, larger and larger areas of the Earth's oceans will become deserts.