Gulf stream, heat transfer

The conveyor belt is shown schematically in Fig. 10-11. Warm and salty surface currents in the western North Atlantic (e.g., the Gulf Stream) transport heat to the Norwegian-Greenland Seas where it is transferred to the atmosphere. This heat helps moderate the climate of northern Europe. The cooling increases the density resulting in formation of the now cold and salty North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) (Worthington, 1970). The NADW travels south through the North and South Atlantic and then joins the Circumpolar Current that travels virtually unimpeded in a clockwise direction around the Antarctic Continent. 

Currents in the oceans, both surface and deep, are responsible for planetary-scale heat transfer, and thus oceans profoundly impact Earth s climate. The surface currents are driven mainly by wind, with their direction modified by the Coriolis force, which is an inertial force arising from Earth s rotation (see Section 4.3.1 for a detailed discussion). Several of the major oceanic surface currents are shown in Fig. 2.11. These include the well-knovm Gulf Stream, in the Atlantic Ocean, whose heat flux helps warm the climate of northern Europe. 

Although methanol from synthesis gas has been a large-scale industrial chemical for 70 years, the scientific basis of the manufacture apparently can stand some improvement, which was undertaken by Beenackers, Graaf, and Stamhiiis (in Gheremisinoff, ed., Handbook of Heat and Mass Transfer, vol. 3, Gulf, 1989, pp. 671—699). The process occurs at 50 to 100 atm with catalyst of oxides of Gii-Zn-Al and a feed stream of H2, GO, and GO2. Three reactions were taken for the process ... 

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