Scientists have discovered a zebra-stripe pattern of deep, wide and slow currents that cut east-west across the planet’s oceans, each like a plodding conveyer belt at the airport passenger terminal.

The previously unsuspected currents stand in sharp contrast to the heat- and wind-driven express trains such as the Gulf Stream, which typically flow in a circular pattern.

The findings on this ocean’s hidden texture will be published in an upcoming issue of the Geophysical Research Letters by a team of four scientists that includes a researcher and a postdoctoral fellow from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Using data from satellites and drifting buoys, the scientists found that weak but persistent currents run horizontally across oceans worldwide, moving particles east or west.

Their cause remains a mystery.

Eventually, the currents, or striations, could explain how nutrients move through sea water and boost marine life, and also might explain the effect of the ocean current on climate, the scientists said.

“These are jetlike features,” said Nikolai Maximenko, one of the authors and a researcher with the UH International Pacific Research Center. “We suspect that they must contribute significantly to mixing in the ocean and to earthly interaction, which is important for climate systems.”

Read more …

(Source: Robert Shikina, Honolulu Star-Bulletin)