SYDNEY — Australian scientists have identified a massive underwater current they say is the missing link in a ‘global conveyor belt’ that connects the world’s oceans and regulates climate around the planet. Research confirms that a current sweeping past Tasmania, south of the Australian mainland, towards the South Atlantic is a previously undetected component of the ‘engine room’ of the global climate system. Ken Ridgway, a scientist with the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), said yesterday that the current – called the Tasman Outflow, and found at a depth of 2,600 to 3,300ft – may play an important role in the conveyor belt’s response to climate change. The missing deep ocean pathway, known as a ‘supergyre’, links the three ocean basins of the southern hemisphere: the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic. Research by a CSIRO team has confirmed that the waters south of Tasmania form a ‘choke point’, connecting the main ‘circulation cells’ in the three oceans. Mr Ridgway said it had long been known that a system of currents north of Australia, called the Indonesian Throughflow, drains water from the Pacific into the Indian Ocean through Indonesia – a process that influences rainfall in […]