Thread: The ozone hole and the Roaring Forties

I recently read that the presence of the ozone hole over Antarctica has resulted in the Roaring Forties moving southward. This movement has produced other changes, not least of which is the leakage of warm Indian Ocean water into the cold south Atlantic.

I have not been able to find any clear explanation as to why the ozone hole causes the Roaring Forties to move south. Can anyone offer an explanation?

A straight line on a sphere is up.

Is this some oblique reference to the Coriolis effect?

Bunbury do you remember where you read that?
I try to keep with atmospheric sciences and haven't come anything about that relationship.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Bunbury do you remember where you read that?
I try to keep with atmospheric sciences and haven't come anything about that relationship.

It was in a book "Atlantic" by Simon Winchester. I'll try and post the exact quote later this evening. The book was a bit of a disappointment - long on anecdote and short on science, but a decent read despite that.

Here's what Winchester wrote. He doesn't provide any references and I did spend some time googling for info without result.

It is as though the Southern Ocean Super-Gyre, the climatic forcing agent…that sailors know as the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties and the Shrieking Sixties, has recently shifted southward, toward the pole. The reason for this, climatologists insist, is the human-induced depletion of ozone in the atmosphere above the western Antarctic: it seems the winds may have slipped down toward the ozone hole, as it were to fill the gap the ozone has left behind, confirming the age-old principle of nature’s abhorrence of a vacuum.

I found the bit about vacuum rather silly in this context.

He goes on to say that the resulting Agulhas Leakage around Africa sends warm salty water into the North Brazil current from where it could enter the Gulf Stream, which I assume could affect the climate of Northern Europe.

If you find anything on this I'd be interested in reading it.

Found one reference:
Cai, W. Antarctic ozone depletion causes an intensification of the Southern
Ocean super-gyre circulation. Geophys. Res. Lett. 33, L03712 (2006).