Seismology researchers said that they were able to measure temperatures in the depths of the Indian Ocean, by analyzing and studying the sound vibrations that earthquakes cause on the water floor.
Earthquake wave analysis
The oceans have a great role in preserving the sustainability of life on the planet, as they contribute to absorbing 25% of carbon dioxide and providing 50% of oxygen, thus they play a role in mitigating the effects of climate change and reducing the temperature of our planet.
Scientists have often tried to understand what is happening in the seas and oceans, but the difficulty was always in studying deep areas that exceed two thousand meters due to the difficulty of reaching them, but this technology will enable scientists from now on to understand what is really happening in them and thus monitor its development.
In the study, published on September 18 in the journal Science, the researchers said that the distance that the sound waves caused by earthquakes travel from the center to the last point they can reach, reflecting the average water temperature, according to a model developed for that.
“The main idea of our research is to measure the temperature of deep waters by analyzing earthquake waves that occur at the bottom of the oceans, and inferring the temperature based on the velocity,” said researcher Jorn Callis from the Department of Geology and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology. These waves. “
Indonesia earthquakes for experimentation
The researchers chose waters near the Indonesian island of Sumatra, which is a frequent source of earthquakes, to conduct their experiments, which began in 2004.
The researchers say that the higher the temperature of the water, the higher the transmission speed of the sound waves, which was confirmed by the principal investigator, Wen Bo Wei, in the press release published on the website of the Department of Geology and Planetary Sciences at the institute. Waves, and this device can detect waves from long distances of up to thousands of kilometers. “
According to the preliminary results gathered through this experiment, the Indian Ocean waters are experiencing a significant increase in temperature, and they prefer not to comment on that until new experiments are conducted.
The technology is valid for all oceans
The researchers say that this technology can be applied in all the world’s oceans, and it is inexpensive and easy to install, and thus will open new horizons towards combating climate change and preserving the oceans.
“This technique will help us to accurately determine the extent of the warming of the deep waters of the oceans, because they absorb a large amount of greenhouse gases, and its role in maintaining the thermal balance is very large,” said researcher Jorn Callis – to Al Jazeera Net.
“Oceanologists have worked hard for decades to measure the warming in the seas and oceans with a large fleet of buoys, but even with around 4,000 of these buoys, there are gaps that our way of bridging them,” the researcher added.