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In oceanography, the sverdrup (symbol: Sv) is a non-SI metric unit of volumetric flow rate, with equal to . It is equivalent to the SI derived unit cubic hectometer per second (symbol: hm3/s or hm3⋅s−1): is equal to . It is used almost exclusively in oceanography to measure the volumetric rate of transport of . It is named after Harald Sverdrup.
One sverdrup is about five times what is carried at the estuary by the world's largest river, the Amazon. In the context of , a volume of one million cubic meters may be imagined as a "slice" of ocean with dimensions × × (width × length × thickness) or a cube with dimensions × × . At this scale, these units can be more easily compared in terms of width of the current (several km), depth (hundreds of meters), and current speed (as velocity). Thus, a hypothetical current wide, (m) deep, and moving at would be transporting of water.
The sverdrup is distinct from the SI sievert unit or the non-SI svedberg unit. All three use the same symbol, but they are not related.
In the 1950s and early 1960s both Soviet and North American scientists contemplated the damming of the Bering Strait, thus enabling temperate Atlantic water to heat up the cold Arctic Sea and, the theory went, making Siberia and northern Canada more habitable. As part of the North American team, Canadian oceanographer Maxwell Dunbar found it "very cumbersome" to repeatedly reference millions of cubic meters per second. He casually suggested that as a new unit of water flow, "the inflow through Bering Strait is one sverdrup". At the Arctic Basin Symposium in October 1962, the unit came into general usage.
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current, at approximately , is the largest ocean current.
The entire global input of fresh water from rivers to the ocean is approximately .
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