How does Mars affect Earth’s ocean currents, creating vortices in the depths? A recent study explains it
They called her slow “cosmic dance” between Mars and Earth. As reported by a recent study published in the journal Nature Communicationsthe gravitational interaction between our Planet and the Red Planet influences ocean currents with a pattern that repeats approximately every 2.4 million years. An important discovery that could help scientists better understand Earth’s climate changes and how they will evolve in the future.
The new study on the Mars-Earth duo
The study entitled Deep-sea hiatus record reveals orbital pacing by 2.4 Myr eccentricity grand cyclespublished last March in the magazine Nature Communicationsproposed a new analysis of geological data from our oceans and demonstrated how Mars affects ocean currents on Earth and beyond.
“We were surprised to find these cycles of 2.4 million years in our deep-sea sedimentary data,” said geoscientist Adriana Dutkiewicz of the University of Sydney, lead author of the study. There is only one way to explain them: they are connected to cycles in interactions of Mars and Earth orbiting the Sun“. In essence, scientists have identified an astronomical “great cycle” that repeats every 2.4 million years and which is closely connected to the alignment of the orbits of Mars and Earth.
Located about 140 million kilometers from our planet, Mars therefore plays a role much more important role than previously believed in terrestrial oceanic processes, influencing the formation of large marine vortices in the depths. A conclusion that was made possible by an in-depth analysis of hundreds of data collected over half a century, including sedimentary samples collected from the ocean floor in different parts of the Earth.
The effects of Mars on ocean currents
Professor Dutkiewicz and her team – made up of scientists from the EarthByte Group – School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney in Australia and the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Sorbonne University in Paris in France – got to work to check how Ocean currents accelerate or decelerate in relation to a warmer climate. A necessary analysis given the latest worrying phenomena such as the AMOC, one of the most important ocean currents on Earth which according to the latest studies seems to be heading towards collapse.
Ocean currents alter the sediments in the depths and cause “breaks”. Some of these unexpectedly occurred with almost mathematical precision, every 2.4 million years, that is, whenever the interaction between Earth and Mars has changed the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbitcausing the amount of energy received from the Sun to increase. Higher temperatures increase the speed of ocean currents and thus they form vortices.
Therefore the influence of Mars on the Earth’s orbit cyclically has an effect on the speed of ocean currents. The bottom line is that there is a connection between the gravitational interaction between Mars and the Earth and the Earth’s warming, a new discovery that will allow scientists to improve their climate models. It therefore means that they will be able to predict with greater precision climate changes that are not strictly linked to the climate crisis due to CO2 emissions and everything connected to human activity.
