Question

Passage:

For decades following the landmark 1872–1876 Challenger expedition, physical oceanographers conceptualized deep-ocean circulation as a sluggish, wind-driven drift primarily confined to upper-layer thermal dynamics. This paradigm was disrupted in the mid-twentieth century when oceanographer Henry Stommel proposed a radical theoretical framework for abyssal circulation. Stommel hypothesized that deep-water formation, restricted to narrow subpolar regions in the North Atlantic and Antarctic, creates intense downward convective plumes. To maintain mass conservation across the global ocean, these localized sinking regions must feed deep western boundary currents that transport cold water equatorward. Crucially, Stommel predicted that slow, uniform upward upwelling throughout the ocean interior would balance this deep inflow, driving a counterintuitive poleward flow within the deep ocean interior itself. Initial skepticism from empirical oceanographers persisted until 1957, when Stommel and John Swallow deployed neutral-buoyancy floats to directly measure the predicted deep boundary current off the coast of South Carolina. Beyond merely verifying a physical current, Stommel’s model fundamentally reoriented oceanography from a purely descriptive science of empirical observations into a predictive, dynamics-driven discipline that integrates localized fluid mechanics with global climate systems.

Based on the passage, which of the following statements correctly characterize the main idea or primary purpose of the text? Select all that apply.