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An ocean thermal energy conversion power plant built by Makai Ocean Engineering went operational in Hawaii in August 2015. The governor of Hawaii, David Ige, "flipped the switch" to activate the plant. This is the first true closed-cycle ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) plant to be connected to a U.S. electrical grid.
Atmospheric circulation is the large-scale movement of air and together with ocean circulation is the means by which thermal energy is redistributed on the surface of the Earth. The Earth's atmospheric circulation varies from year to year, but the large-scale structure of its circulation remains fairly constant.
Mesoscale eddies can be split into two categories: static eddies, caused by flow around an obstacle (see animation) [clarification needed], and transient eddies, caused by baroclinic instability. When the ocean contains a sea surface height gradient this creates a jet or current, such as the Antarctic Circumpolar Current .
NOAA NODC WOA05 is the World Ocean Atlas 2005, an atlas of objectively analyzed fields of major ocean parameters at monthly, seasonal, and annual time scales. In situ observations spanning from the early 1700s to present are available from the International Comprehensive Ocean Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS).
The chemical and thermal dynamics in hydrothermal vents makes such environments highly suitable thermodynamically for chemical evolution processes to take place. Therefore, thermal energy flux is a permanent agent and is hypothesized to have contributed to the evolution of the planet, including prebiotic chemistry.
Computer models of ocean circulation increasingly place most of the deep upwelling in the Southern Ocean, associated with the strong winds in the open latitudes between South America and Antarctica. [28] Direct estimates of the strength of the thermohaline circulation have also been made at 26.5°N in the North Atlantic, by the UK-US RAPID ...
The hyperthermals were geologically brief time intervals (<200,000 years) of global warming and massive input of isotopically light carbon into the ocean and atmosphere. [ 7 ] [ 8 ] The most extreme and best-studied event, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM or ETM-1), occurred about 1.8 million years before ETM-2, at approximately 55.8 Ma.
A schematic overview of the Southern Ocean overturning circulation. The arrows point in the direction of the water movement. The lower cell of the circulation is depicted by the upwelling arrows south of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) and the formation of Antarctic Bottom Water beneath the sea ice of Antarctica due to buoyancy loss.