2023-07-13 06:00:09
Popular videos on YouTube and TikTok show a strange line in the ocean, with dark water on one side and clear water on the other.
Meeting point between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at the Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego (Tierra del Fuego (Tierra del Fuego in Spanish) is the name given to the archipelago that is …), Chile.
Credit: DEA/GIANNI OLIVA
These videos often claim that these lines mark a border (A border is an imaginary line separating two territories, in particular two…) between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, and even suggest that these two oceans do not mix. Is this really the case? The oceans are constantly mixing, says NadÃn RamÃrez, an oceanographer at the University of Concepción in Chile. It’s a slow process, much like when cream dissolves in coffee. On one side, the water may be saltier, cleaner or colder; these differences take time to balance out. This process can be accelerated by strong winds and large waves, which act like a spoon stirring the coffee.
The Pacific and Atlantic oceans mix faster in some places than in others. They meet near the southern tip of South America, where the continent (the word continent comes from the Latin continere to “hold together”, or continens…) breaks up into a string of small islands. In the Beagle Channel, water from melting glaciers creates lines between fresh and salt water that look like the lines in the videos.
In the Strait of Magellan, another popular passageway, where the strait empties into the Atlantic, a line less visible to the naked eye is detectable by oceanographers through measurements. The water from the Pacific, which is less salty due to higher rainfall, forms a blue tongue there. It remains separated for some time before storms and waves erase this line.
A water exchange does not mean mixing. Water exchange means that waters move from place to place without necessarily mixing their properties. Thanks to global currents, the Pacific and the Atlantic are constantly exchanging water.
Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn seen from space.
Image Wikimedia Commons
Casimir de Lavergne, researcher at the Sorbonne (The Sorbonne is a monumental complex in the Latin Quarter of Paris. It takes its name from…) and at the CNRS, indicates that climate change induces (The armature is an electromagnetic organ generally used in electrical engineering responsible for…) by man (A man is an adult male individual of the species called Modern Man (Homo…) slows down these currents. The poles heat up, the water coming from the melting ice, warmer and less salty, does not sink as much, thus slowing down the exchange of water.
This slowing down of water mixing should change the way the oceans recycle oxygen (Oxygen is a chemical element of the chalcogen family, from…) and nutrients, with consequences for marine life. However, the oceans will never stop mixing or exchanging water. “As long as there are winds and tides, there will be mixtures. There will be currents”, concludes Casimir de Lavergne.
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