Whirlpools in the oceans: Japan, Norway, Sicily, and U.S.

The Icelandic Whirlpool

Note the low pressure system that sits on top of Iceland. This “Icelandic Low” helps bring moisture to northern Europe and Scandinavia. (Modified from: NOAA)

Low Pressure in Iceland and Rain in Norway

On its way north, the Gulf Stream transports some 100 million cubic meters of water per second. To put this in perspective, one million cubic meters per second (equal to one "sverdrup," after the Norwegian oceanographer Harald U. Sverdrup and abbreviated sv) is a five times greater flow than that carried by the Amazon (the largest river in the world) at flood stage. (See the glossary section on “general circulation of the ocean”).

This tremendous flow of warm water toward Iceland does two things. First, it brings large amounts of heat which are available through redistribution by latent heat flux: the release of moisture (as rain) that warms the air (The town of Bergen, Norway is famous for its rain. In Oslo they tell this joke: A tourist asked a child in Bergen, “Does the rain here ever stop.” He answers, “ I don't know, I’m only 8 years old.”) Second, the warm water sets up a low pressure region around Iceland, reaching over into the Norwegian Sea. This helps accelerate the westerly winds, which drive the North Atlantic Currents, and it sheds storm systems that move downwind into Norway, Sweden, Scotland, the Netherlands, Denmark and northern Germany.

Satellite data of sea surface temperature from April 18, 2001. Notice the temperature anomaly off Norway and how, between 60°N and 80°N, the waters off Norway’s coast are as much as 8°C warmer than waters at the same latitude of Greenland, the Hudson Bay, and Alaska. (From: IRI/LDEO Climate Data Library)

Formation of an Iceland Whirlpool

The Icelandic Low acts as an enormous whirlpool sucking in warm air from the subtropical regions on top of the Gulf Stream and sending much of the heat to Norwegian shores. The transport of heat by the warm ocean currents and the warm moist winds associated with them is what allows strawberries to grow in Norway. The counter-clockwise movement of this great whirlpool centered on Iceland stabilizes the regional circulation, helping to pull in warm water and warm winds that bring the energy that powers the whirlpool. Such a system may be called "self-stabilizing." It produces one of the greatest temperature anomalies known for the surface of the ocean, the uncommonly warm waters off Norway. Such a large anomaly suggests that the system is somehow "out of equilibrium" in this region. In turn, being out of equilibrium means that any substantial change in conditions (like those that could come about by climate change) is likely to result in a return toward equilibrium, that is, a colder Norwegian Sea, and a colder Norway.

PHOTOS:
http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange1/10_3.shtml

Scylla and Charybdis

The world must have seemed a far more mysterious and unpredictable place two thousand years ago. Oases of civilization bordered on wider lands that were true terra incognita, rarely visited and poorly understood. Traveler's tales were eagerly listened to and retold by the folks at home, each repetition contributing some minor inaccuracy, some new twist or elaboration. (Perhaps we're about to experience a return to such myth-making times, as human beings begin the exploration and colonization of other worlds.) Moreover, many of the travelers themselves, eager to enhance their reputation, wouldn't have been averse to adding some extra color and vim to their memoirs.

Seafaring exploits, especially, would have been embellished with more than a little poetic license. Stranger, darker things did happen at sea in far-off times because the seas and oceans were largely uncharted and who was there to dispute what lay beyond them or in their impenetrable depths?

Among the many hazards said to have been faced by Odysseus on his epic sea voyage were Scylla and Charybdis, immortal and irresistible beings who lurked menacingly on either side of a certain narrow passage of water which the Greek hero had to negotiate in order to continue his journey. Scylla was an impressive twelve feet in length, boasted six long, snaking heads, and had loins unappealingly girt with the heads of baying dogs. Charybdis, on the other hand, spent most of its time skulking under a fig tree on the opposite shore. Three times a day, however, it would bestir itself to gulp down most of the waters of the passage and then belch them forth in a bloody-minded effort to make life just about as difficult as possible for any hapless seafarers.

It's easy for us to appreciate now that Homer's tale of these two creatures was just an imaginative expression of the dangers facing Greek mariners when they first set out into the unknown waters of the western Mediterranean. Scylla and Charybdis were the Hellenic counterparts of the sea monsters that some medieval writers believed awaited those who ventured too far across the Atlantic. But, as it happens, Charybdis is real – if a lot less terrifying than legend once painted it.

The factual Charybdis is alive and well and living almost opposite the entrance to the harbor of Messina in Sicily, in the strait between Sicily and the peninsular body of Italy. Its modern name is the Garofalo and, at times, it can pose a threat even to modern shipping. But it's certainly not the monstrous whirlpool of legend. In fact, it isn't actually a whirlpool at all because there's no circular motion of the water. The Garofalo forms when strong winds blow across the Strait in the opposite direction to the flow of the tide. This results in a violent broken swell, or unusually choppy seas, which can be rough enough to overturn small vessels and create a significant navigation hazard for larger ones.

Similar but more dangerous is the Maelstrom off the coast of Norway. Norse legends make frequent reference to it and, in the last century, both Jules Verne and Edgar Allen Poe featured it in their fictional adventures. Poe, in his short story "Descent Into the Maelstrom" from Tales of Mystery and Imagination goes overboard in more ways than one:

The current acquired a monstrous velocity ... The vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into frenzied convulsions – heaving, boiling, hissing – gyrating in gigantic and innumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the eastward with a rapidity water never elsewhere assumes, except in precipitous descents. In a few minutes more there came over the scene another radical alteration ... The gyratory motions of the subsided vortices seemed to form the germ of another more vast. Suddenly – very suddenly – this assumed a distinct and broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrible funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could see it, was a smooth, shining, and jet black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some 45 degrees, speedily, dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty cataract of Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to heaven.

Taking on the role of a modern-day Homer, Poe plays on our dread of the irresistible vortex, sucking down everything – whales, men, and ships alike – to their watery doom. In our minds, maelstrom and giant whirlpool become one, synonymous with inescapable confusion, destruction, and despair. Most recently, astronomers believe they've found such objects in the depths of space in the form of black holes: the centers of whirlpools of matter swirling round and round before finally disappearing over the edge of a precipitous gravitational well.

However, the Maelstrom, like the real Charybdis, is not a true whirlpool, though its effects can be deadly enough. Located at latitude 67° 48' north and longitude 12° 50' east, the Maelstrom occurs between two of the Lofoten Islands: Moskenesoya in the north and Mosken in the south. Essentially, it's a powerful tidal current, about five miles wide, flowing along a deep marine channel between the open sea on the west and Vestfjorden on the Norwegian coast to the east. The danger to ships is greatest when the tides change, because at these times the current can reach a speed of seven miles an hour, added to which is the problem of strong, unpredictable local winds.

Genuine whirlpools do exist at sea, but not nearly on the scale some writers have suggested. Among them is Corrievreckan, or "Brecan's Cauldron", off the west coast of Scotland between the islands of Jura and Scarba. Its cause: strong tides thrown into a vortex by their passage over a pyramidal rock which rises from a depth of 100 fathoms to within just 15 feet of the surface. Not surprisingly, several Celtic tales of magic and mystery are woven around it.

Giant ocean whirlpools puzzle scientists
12.04.2011

US scientists discovered two giant whirlpools in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Guyana and Suriname. It became a sensational discovery because this part of the ocean has been studied thoroughly, and no one expected anything like that to appear in the area. More importantly, no one can understand where the whirlpools came from and what surprises they may bring to people.

According to Brazilian scientist Guilherme Castellane, the two funnels are approximately 400 kilometers in diameter. Until now, these were not known on Earth. The funnels reportedly exert a strong influence on climate changes that have been registered during the recent years.

"Funnels rotate clockwise. They are moving in the ocean like giant frisbees, two discs thrown into the air. Rotation occurs at a rate of one meter per second, the speed is sufficiently large compared to the speed of oceanic currents, on the border hoppers is a wave-step height of 40 cm," Castellane said.

Even during the dry months, when the movement of oceanic currents and the flow of the Amazon River practically comes to a standstill, the funnels do not disappear. Therefore, the nature of the funnels does not depend on the flow of water, which one of the world's biggest rivers brings into the ocean. The natural phenomenon, which creates the whirlpools, is unknown to modern science.

As a matter of fact, the phenomenon of giant whirlpools in the World Ocean is not new to science. In most cases, the craters, or rings, as scientists call them, are formed as a result of so-called vertical currents. The latter, in their turn, appear because of differences in water density which appear because of difference in temperatures of water layers. It is an open secret that cold water is thicker and heavier, so it goes down, underneath the masses of warm water, which is lighter. This is the reason why warm currents in the World Ocean always flow closer to the surface, whereas colder currents flow closer to the bottom.

However, such movement of water may not always depend on the difference of temperatures of the water column. The difference in salinity can also be a reason. The mechanism here is the same. The density of saltier water is higher, this water is heavier and it moves closer to the bottom, pushing less saltier water up. This type of vertical fusion occurs frequently in the tropics because high temperatures lead to the evaporation of water from the surface. The salt does not evaporate with water, though. It stays in the ocean, which raises the level of salinity on the upper layer of water. This layer "drowns" and gives way to less saltier waters of the depth.

Such vertical movements of water create giant whirlpools. The whirlpools, tens and even hundreds of kilometers in diameter, may last for months and even years, scientists say. The vertical movement of waters is a slow process, though. Why do those whirlpools exist for such a long time? This is partially the effect of Earth's magnetic field. In addition, marine water contains many charged ions, Na and Cl for example. To crown it all, water molecules are dipoles that are charged both positively and negatively.

Any dipole starts spinning when moving in the magnetic field. An oceanic ring gathers millions of billions of molecules together. That is why the giant circle movement triggered by the vertical movement of water may last for months and years mechanically. Ions also give more power to the craters. Natrium and Chlorum are charged as well, and their movement in the magnetic field of the Earth also leads to the appearance of the circle movement.

It is not ruled out that the reason for the appearance of the whirlpools off the coast of South America is the same as in other parts of the World Ocean. Scientists are currently studying the influence of those giant funnels on the climate of Latin America and Africa. Such whirlpools show influence on the atmosphere and form cyclonical air mass. They can also affect the movement of air mass formed in other places. For the time being, scientists do not know how the newly discovered water craters can affect the climate of Central and South Americas.

You forgot "OLD SOW" the biggest whirlpool in the US . Its right off Eastport Maine and is in the {assamaquoddy Inlet where the tides run at 25+ feet each cycle qnd a Tidal Bore can easily be seen from shore.
We would bring our boqt through the whirlpool field every time we would return at a lowering tide. You would have to be very careful or you capuld have your boat spun about (which we did once in a Zodiac--Fortunately the Zodiac is so light on the water and is easily motored out of trouble witha 10HP motor that, when I got caught in qan opening "pool" I just gunned the motor and shot right over the edge wall. SCary though.

I think there's another dandy somewhere in Alaska's Inland Passage that is a hazard to navagation.