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How does the global conveyor belt move water?
The global ocean conveyor belt is a constantly moving system of deep-ocean circulation driven by temperature and salinity. The great ocean conveyor moves water around the globe. As more warm water is transported north, the cooler water sinks and moves south to make room for the incoming warm water.
What are global water currents?
The global conveyor belt’s circulation is the result of two simultaneous processes: warm surface currents carrying less dense water away from the Equator toward the poles, and cold deep ocean currents carrying denser water away from the poles toward the Equator.
What is the global conveyor belt?
The global conveyor belt is a system of ocean currents that transport water around the world. While wind primarily propels surface currents, deep currents are driven by differences in water densities in a process called thermohaline circulation.
How is the global conveyor belt affected by global warming?
Global climate change could disrupt the global conveyer belt, causing potentially drastic temperature changes in Europe and even worldwide. This sequence of events could slow or even stop the conveyor belt, which could result in potentially drastic temperature changes in Europe.
What is global conveyor belt?
Where is the global conveyor belt?
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.
Why is global conveyor belt important?
The conveyor belt is also a vital component of the global ocean nutrient and carbon dioxide cycles. Warm surface waters are depleted of nutrients and carbon dioxide, but they are enriched again as they travel through the conveyor belt as deep or bottom layers.
How is the global conveyor belt related to the ocean?
Deep Ocean Currents (Global Conveyor Belt) Invisible to us terrestrial creatures, an underwater current circles the globe with a force 16 times as strong as all the world’s rivers combined [source: NOAA: “Ocean”]. This deep-water current is known as the global conveyor belt and is driven by density differences in the water.
How long does the global conveyer belt take?
This animation shows the path of the global conveyer belt. The blue arrows indicate the path of deep, cold, dense water currents. The red arrows indicate the path of warmer, less dense surface waters. It is estimated that it can take 1,000 years for a “parcel” of water to complete the journey along the global conveyor belt.
Is the great ocean conveyor a still body of water?
The great ocean conveyor moves water around the globe. The ocean is not a still body of water. There is constant motion in the ocean in the form of a global ocean conveyor belt.
Where does cold bottom water go on the conveyor belt?
This cold bottom water flows south of the equator all the way down to Antarctica. Eventually, the cold bottom waters returns to the surface through mixing and wind-driven upwelling, continuing the conveyor belt that encircles the globe.