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The thermohaline circulation is sometimes called the ocean conveyor belt, the great ocean conveyor, or the global conveyor belt, coined by climate scientist Wallace Smith Broecker. [5] [6] It is also referred to as the meridional overturning circulation, or MOC. This name is used because not every circulation pattern caused by temperature and ...
Ocean currents flow for great distances and together they create the global conveyor belt, which plays a dominant role in determining the climate of many of Earth's regions. More specifically, ocean currents influence the temperature of the regions through which they travel.
AMOC in relation to the global thermohaline circulation . The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is the main current system in the Atlantic Ocean, [1]: 2238 and is also part of the global thermohaline circulation, which connects the world's oceans with a single "conveyor belt" of continuous water exchange. [18]
The ocean currents, the movement of the ocean in the surface layer, are driven mostly by the wind. In certain areas near the polar oceans, the colder surface water also gets saltier due to evaporation or sea ice formation. In these regions, the surface water becomes dense enough to sink to the ocean depths.
This initiates the deep-ocean currents driving the global conveyor belt. [30] Thermohaline circulation drives a global-scale system of currents called the “global conveyor belt.” The conveyor belt begins on the surface of the ocean near the pole in the North Atlantic. Here, the water is chilled by Arctic temperatures.
The tipping points for ocean current changes include the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the North Subpolar Gyre and the Southern Ocean overturning circulation. Lastly, the tipping points in terrestrial systems include Amazon rainforest dieback, boreal forest biome shift, Sahel greening, and vulnerable stores of tropical ...
The Indonesian Throughflow (ITF; Indonesian: Arus Lintas Indonesia) is an ocean current with importance for global climate as is the low-latitude movement of warm, relative freshwater from the north Pacific to the Indian Ocean. It thus serves as a main upper branch of the global heat/salt conveyor belt.
Surface currents only affect the top few hundred metres of the sea, but there are also large-scale flows in the ocean depths caused by the movement of deep water masses. A main deep ocean current flows through all the world's oceans and is known as the thermohaline circulation or global conveyor belt.