Christina Nau - M1

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Hillsborough Community College *

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2001C

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Geography

Date

Oct 30, 2023

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docx

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Uploaded by Kayla_2022

Christina Nau Professor Arellano OCE-2001-650 26 August 2023 Ocean Circulation Current Event in Oceanography Around the world, an ocean current is traveling impacting certain continents' temperatures, some with a cooling effect, and others with a warming effect. It is predicted that this wave, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, will collapse in a short time, which is detrimental to our world as some countries rely on it to control their weather. The AMOC is responsible for circulating water, both warm and cold around the world. Ocean circulation as stated in the article, “works like an underwater conveyor belt that extends for thousands of miles to ferry warm surface water from the equator toward the Arctic, where the water cools and sinks to the bottom of the sea, before flowing back in the opposite direction and, eventually, welling up to the surface again” (Harvey). In simple terms, ocean circulation is when warm water at the top of the ocean is mixed with cool water at the bottom of the ocean, which is then brought back up to the surface. Due to a recent study, it is believed that the reason this wave could be “shutting down” is due to Earth’s climate, humans, the Earth’s climate, and the melting of ice. Research is still being conducted, so it is not certain that the AMOC will collapse anytime soon, but it is possible. The only glimpse of hope is that it is believed that the AMOC has stopped before, meaning that if it does stop, it may form again. This topic leads us to oceanography, in which the sub-field of oceanography this article falls under, would be physical oceanography. The reason is physical oceanography deals with the ocean water's motion and properties, which AMOC does since it revolves around the ocean's water circulation. The circulation moves water from the top

of the sea to the bottom, and right back to the top, which is a prime example of physical oceanography. Furthermore, this article is in the news because a lot of people are worried about the side effects of the AMOC collapse. If this mega current stops, some countries may deal with temperature cooling and rising, droughts, floods, and rising seas to name a few. The AMOC collapsing is a global issue because the temperatures around the world would be affected once the AMOC is not circulating the ocean water around them anymore. Some countries' climate revolves around the temperature of the water it is surrounded by, and if the temperature is no longer regulated by this current, it could be life changing. Two interesting concepts I learned from the article are that the AMOC affects temperature, and that melting ice is a major reason for the AMOC's downfall. I never learned about the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation before, so it was new to me that it affected the temperatures of some countries. I also thought it was crazy that “the vast Greenland ice sheet is pouring about 250 billion metric tons of ice into the ocean each year on average” (Harvey). I had not even thought about the amount of ice that is poured into the ocean yearly, so the amount from the Greenland ice sheet was shocking. Lastly, there are several similarities and differences between the scientific consensus on this topic and the new studies findings discussed in the article revolving around the collapse of the AMOC. Scientists have been doing research on the AMOC for years, and while it was thought the AMOC would collapse before the end of the century, a new study states that it could collapse within the next two years. The thing is, studies have shown that the AMOC is getting weaker, but scientists do not believe the AMOC will collapse within the next 100 years. Rather, scientists think that the AMOC will not fully shut down, but rather some parts of the AMOC will weaken but remain. Furthermore, the model used in the new study uses a statistical method to calculate the AMOC, whereas other models were used in prior studies. Lastly, the new study used data from one region

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