Yin said the study was motivated by the extreme cold weather that Texas experienced in February. That, when the ocean heat transfer slows down or shuts down, the weather becomes more extreme.” In the atmosphere, the traffic is the daily weather. “When one is shut down, the other gets more traffic. “Think of it as two highways connecting two major cities,” Yin said. As the atmosphere heat moves north, cold air is displaced from the poles and driven to lower latitudes, reaching places as far south as the southern boundary of the US. If the ocean can not transport as much heat to the north, then the atmosphere must instead transport more heat through more extreme weather processes at mid-latitudes. Both the atmosphere and the ocean work to transport energy from low latitudes to high latitudes. This is important because the equator receives more energy from the sun than the poles. Read Also Why This Rental E-Bike May Change The Way You Look At Transportation As the AMOC slows down, so does northern heat transport. Both heating and refreshing the water can reduce the density of surface water and inhibit the sinking of the water, the AMOC slows down. At the same time, Greenland’s ice sheet is melting, dumping more fresh water into the ocean. “īut as the climate warms, so does the ocean surface. That, 1 petawatt is enough to run about 50 civilizations. At present, the energy consumption throughout the world is about 20 terawatts, as 10 to 12 power watts. “The size is in the order of 1 petawatt, as 10 to 15 power watts. “This circulation transports an enormous amount of heat to the north in the ocean,” Yin said. As the water recedes, it becomes denser, causing it to sink into the deep ocean where it flows back to the south. The study, published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, was led by Jianjun Yin, a professor at the University of Arizona Department of Geosciences and co-author of Ming Zhao, a physical scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.ĪMOC works like this: Hot water travels to the north in the upper Atlantic Ocean and releases heat into the atmosphere at high latitudes. While the AMOC is slowing down due to climate change, the US will experience more extremely cold winter weather. Rotation is driven by differences in water temperature and salinity, and weather patterns around the world are governed by their activity.Ī few researchers examined the Atlantic part of this global conveyor belt called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, as AMOC, and found that winter weather in the US is critically dependent on this conveyor belt-like system. The entire surface of the earth runs a conveyor belt of water. One researcher said the study was motivated by the cold weather that Texas saw in February.