The ocean conveyor belt, scientifically termed the global meridional overturning circulation (MOC), is a planetary-scale, density-driven circulation system that links surface and deep waters across all major ocean basins. It is governed primarily by thermohaline processes, whereby variations in temperature and salinity control seawater density, inducing deep-water formation in high-latitude regions (e.g., North Atlantic) and upwelling in lower latitudes and the Southern Ocean. This circulation redistributes heat, dissolved gases, nutrients, and biogeochemical tracers, exerting strong control on Earth’s climate system, carbon cycle, and deep-ocean ventilation on decadal to millennial timescales.
The heat wave battering Europe may have an unlikely partner in crime: a patch of cold ocean water south of Iceland and Greenland that can influence weather patterns over the continent.
Environment
Jun 26, 2026
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To understand where Earth might be headed, it's important to know where it has been. Throughout its existence, especially over the past couple of million years, Earth has experienced periodic cold and warm intervals, known ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 25, 2026
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Deep in the Atlantic, a vast circulation of water carries heat from the tropics toward Greenland. This is the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, or Amoc. It does this work largely out of sight, so it doesn't have ...
Environment
Jun 17, 2026
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It is becoming increasingly urgent to study the effects of climate change on the global ocean system. Future projections indicate significant changes in the Mediterranean and Atlantic circulation systems, which could have ...
Environment
Jun 16, 2026
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The warm Gulf Stream is maintained by coldness. The Barents Sea is a cooling machine. To predict how ocean currents in the Atlantic Ocean may develop, one needs to know what drives them. The hunt for driving forces has led ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 15, 2026
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15
During an abrupt global cold snap nearly 13,000 years ago, the Gulf Stream ocean current shifted farther north, temporarily disrupting eastern Canada's oceanic ecosystems, a process that could happen again as the climate ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 12, 2026
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87
A part of the Atlantic Ocean, just south of Greenland and Iceland, has been cooling off while the rest of the world gets hotter. This enigmatic patch is often referred to as the "cold blob" and scientists have been trying ...
It may sound counterintuitive, but new research suggests that cleaning up air pollution could contribute to a weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). This is the ocean current system that acts ...
For decades, Antarctica seemed to defy global warming. Since satellites began monitoring the poles in the late 1970s, the seasonal growth and retreat of Antarctic sea ice—frozen seawater that expands around the continent ...
Earth Sciences
May 11, 2026
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A key Atlantic Ocean current system that helps regulate the planet's climate could weaken more than expected by 2100, with potentially devastating consequences worldwide, a new study has found.
Earth Sciences
May 10, 2026
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