ELECTROMAGNETIC FORCES ON THE EARTHS CORE DUE TO THE POLEWARD TRANSPORT OF HEAT IN THE OCEANS

Poleward heat transport in the oceans generate global-scale electric c urrents and associated Lorentz forces in the Earth's core. We make a f irst estimate of this effect using a simple zonally averaged model fro m which we obtain analytical/numerical solutions. The results indicate that the poleward heat transport in the presence of Main field revers als having periods of 10,000 to 10 million years lead to large-scale e lectric currents in the core of order 10(-11) to 10(-13) A/m(2) which although extremely small, imply poleward forces in the core which are likely to have acted systematically throughout the history of the plan et.