Scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery, finding an enormous body of water beneath the Atlantic Ocean that had never been detected before. This gigantic water mass, named the Atlantic Equatorial Water, stretches across the Atlantic from Brazil to the Gulf of Guinea, near West Africa.
This discovery sheds light on how ocean currents mix different bodies of water along the equator. Until now, scientists had only observed this phenomenon in the Pacific and Indian oceans, making this a significant finding. The research findings were published on Oct. 28 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
According to Viktor Zhurbas, a physicist and oceanologist at The Shirshov Institute of Oceanology in Moscow, “The identified new water mass has allowed us to complete (or at least more accurately describe) the phenomenological pattern of basic water masses of the World Ocean.” This discovery challenges the previously held belief that equatorial water masses were only present in the Pacific and Indian oceans.
Ocean water is not uniform; it is a mixture of interconnected masses and layers influenced by currents, eddies, temperature, and salinity changes. Understanding and distinguishing these water masses is crucial for the study of ocean processes such as heat, oxygen, and nutrient transport.
By analyzing data collected by the Argo program, an array of robotic, self-submerging floats scattered across the world’s oceans, the researchers were able to identify the previously undetected Atlantic Equatorial Water. This finding will significantly contribute to the understanding of the ocean’s mixing processes and its impact on global heat and nutrient distribution.
