The first global snapshot of the weak magnetic fields generated by the movement of salty water in the Earth's oceans has been obtained, creating a potentially powerful new tool for understanding climate.

The research by ocean physicist Dr Robert Tyler of the University of Washington and colleagues at Germany’s Earth Research Centre in Potsdam appears in this week's issue of the journal Science.

"It is the first demonstration the magnetic fields generated by ocean flow can be detected by satellite," Tyler told ABC Science Online.

Salts in seawater form electrically-charged ions that generate electric currents, as well as magnetic fields, as they move. The British physicist Michael Faraday predicted this as far back as the 1830s but since then, only localised measurements of the phenomenon have ever been made.

The researchers used two years’ worth of data collected from the highly-sensitive German remote sensing research satellite, CHAMP, to measure magnetism in ocean currents......Click Here to Read More...