Re: The Western Interior Seaway (and computers)

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> I was thinking way back to my Geo. 101 lab days.  Cold water at the poles
> sinks, drawing the warm water from the equator northward to take its
> place.  The cold water then upwells near the tropics to begin the process
> over.  It apparently works very well on a global scale in extremely deep
> water.  But in a shallower epieric sea, would it still work?

In a reportedly 40 (yes, forty) m deep sea, I don't think so...

> Would
> there be a sufficient temperature gradient with increasing depth (and
> between the tropics and the poles) in the WIS to drive such a dynamo?

I guess the temperature gradient could even have been inverse. Assuming the 
water was clean enough, the sun shone to the bottom of the WIS.