Breaking internal tides keep the ocean in balance

The surface waters of the ocean are heated by the Sun at low latitudes and cooled near the poles. These large-scale patterns of heating and cooling, along with the freezing of sea ice at high latitudes, set up spatial differences in density, driving the so-called thermohaline circulation of the ocean. A major feature of this circulation is the sinking of cold, dense waters at high latitudes. Along the slopes of the Antarctic continent, roughly 25 million cubic meters of water per second are plummeting downward toward the seafloor and then spreading outward, eventually covering the bottom of the entire global ocean and instigating a complex series of related currents that have a major effect on our climate.