Clive Cussler - Oregon Files 04 - Skeleton Coast by Clive Cussler

Author:Clive Cussler [Cussler, Clive]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-03-13T06:00:00+00:00

“Did you say heaters?” Eddie asked.

“Yup. Someone thinks the water around here is a bit cool and decided to heat it up.”

Cabrillo took another sip of coffee and helped himself to a Danish before Linda polished off the plate.

“Can you tell how long they’ve been in operation?”

“They came online in early 2004.”

“And what’s been the effect?”

“That data isn’t on the computer,” Mark replied. “I’m no oceanographer or anything, but I can’t imagine even this much heat having much of an effect on the entire ocean. I know the waste heat from a nuclear reactor can warm a river a few degrees. But that’s pretty localized.”

Juan leaned back again, drumming his fingers against his jaw. His eyes swam in and out of focus. The senior staff continued to talk around him, throwing out ideas and conjecture, but he heard none of their chatter. In his mind he could see the huge generator stations sawing away on the crests of waves while below them radiant heaters glowed cherry red and warmed the waters flowing northward along the African coast.

“If it weren’t for the gun-toting goons cropping up left and right,” Mark was saying when Juan snapped back to the present, “I’d guess this was an art project by, what’s that guy? You know the one who wraps islands in fabric and built those gates in Central Park. Crisco?”

“Christo,” Max replied absently.

“Mark, you’re a genius.” Cabrillo said.

“What? You think this is some messed-up art project?”

“No. What you said about a river.” Juan glanced around the table. “This isn’t about warming the entire ocean, only one very specific part of it. We’re smack in the middle of the Benguela Current, one of the tightest currents in the world. It runs just like a river with clearly demarked boundaries. And right around here it splits in two. One branch continues northward along the coast while the other veers west to become part of the South Atlantic subtropical gyre. The gyre carries water along South America where it is heated several degrees higher than the current that stuck close to Africa.”

“With you so far,” Mark said.

“The two currents meet up again near the equator and as they mix they act as a buffer zone between Northern Hemisphere currents and those of the Southern.”

“I don’t see the big deal here, Chairman. Sorry.”

“If the two currents are closer in temperature when they come together their buffering ability is going to be diminished, possibly enough to overcome the Coriolis effect that drives the prevailing winds and thus these shallow currents.”

Eddie Seng paused from taking a sip of coffee to say, his face alight in comprehension, “This could alter the very direction of the ocean’s currents altogether.”

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