The Atlantic Meridional Overturning

[@karenmann4825]

Fantastic!!!! It’s amazing how much it helps to SEE this process instead of just hearing the explanation. As a retired Earth science teacher, I truly regret that I did not realize how beneficial “simple” experiments are in gaining knowledge of a subject.

[@vivekjagdale369]

Indian students love the way you teach sir thanks for making video sir

[@shreya262]

What is stopping others from explaining this in such an interesting manner ... Thankyou professor u made my life easy ....

[@IshdeepGill]

It took me only 5 minutes to understand AMOC, however earlier, for around 1 hour I was stuck with the theoretical explanation. Thanks Proff for this Amazing practical explanation.

[@ayushijoshi3139]

Thats amazing! I am Ayushi, from India. Thanku so much, understanding Amoc in theory was giving me a hard time. But this video of practical representation helped a loads. Thank you so much sir. Amazing work indeed.

[@Justthink0858]

thank you for the great experiment

[@stephenrafter1980]

Did you know the AMOC don't just slow down, it can reverse for a short period of time. That effects the weather and it's all natural climate system weather.

[@acapitusomaari5816]

This was an absolutley fantastic demonstration.

[@arianakluyverrodriguez5439]

Amazing video, thank you!

[@ernestorodriguez7282]

Thanks a lot for your clear and plastic explanation, professor!!

[@ActuallyDKG]

Really amazing.. :) Thank You

[@shrutitiwari5165]

Fantastic explanation ! Thank you 😊

[@hurmuzyuman2861]

Pretty sure I’ll never forget that + the infusion of water and the colours looks beautiful. Thanks professor

[@navinraut5920]

Fantastic and clear !

[@Maitreya41]

Superb demonstration. Never seen any video like this on Atlantic ocean meridional circulation

[@007bhagyaraju]

Woww...amazing demonstration sir

[@vivekanand2874]

Amazing Sir . Love you from India ❤

[@life3843]

Keep doing this types of videos sir Nice and easily understandable

[@safyan9442]

Kya level hain bap re bap! Couldn't have explained that any better. That's why western world is so great with sciences and they attract so many of the best of eastern minds. Thank you professor saab!

[@RituLodhi143]

The way to presenting is really fabulous.

[@gulafroz9239]

Awesome Sir.

[@azrielshacham6829]

Clear and simple explanation- genius

[@IbrahimBadawi-u3h]

Thanks so much for clarification

[@jededge]

great explanation, thanks

[@nishabisht6822]

Nice explanation sir. Really appreciable

[@reverendgreen4744]

Such a cool experiment! It really blows my mind.

[@ritti.ritika]

Amazing Explanation.. thank You Sir:)

[@SomeKindOfTease]

Amazing Video Thank you

[@TheDoomWizard]

Brilliant video

[@anobamjelishsana8939]

thank you for this experimental teaching😊

[@dekunaruto8663]

thank you so much for this explanation, it took me forever looking through random sources on google to understand the gulf steam, none helped.

[@damon993]

wonderful and really helpful explanation that will last in our mind forever. its a request from a student to kindly make more such videos. thanks and regards sir

[@petrichor4833]

what a beautiful explanation!!

[@critiqueofthegothgf]

god, this is fantastic

[@neil1528]

Great representation 😮

[@vishalverma4729]

Amazing demonstration

[@naveenkumargh6236]

Best way to learn 👍👍👍👍

[@devyanipudale3408]

This was very insightful and the demonstration helped in better understanding.

[@jamstawildman]

Great demonstration

[@fnusharon223]

superb, so simple to understand it this way. Thanks for the video! :)

[@johnearle5031]

A simple but very beautiful demo which really makes an impact; and the cycle time is so long!

[@DavidSiegelVision]

First three minutes were very interesting.

[@photon1117]

Thanks for your effort. Much appreciated.

[@mauricegiuliani3806]

Excelent.

[@act494]

Great demonstration. Does the salinity in the water affect this process?

[@jonathansharples8130]

In the real ocean, yes it does. We have to include effects of both temperature and salinity on the water density.

[@mmcc1391]

Excellent work

[@vinumalnad02]

Thank you sir🙏🙏

[@kartikchoudhary627]

appreciated efforts

[@steve30704]

amazing! Great work:))

[@Youn06311]

wow thank you so much

[@jeweltilak767]

That was really amazing. Thank you so much

[@sushmithasr7540]

Thankyou so much sir

[@krupavathi127]

Thank you so much love from india

[@senawiweka4438]

Prof, could you explain what is the effect toward living organism like fish? does it contain more nutrients and smh like that? thank you

[@jonathansharples8130]

The deep water does contain a lot of nutrients. In the Atlantic we usually find the greatest nutrient concentrations at a depth of about 1000 metres. Somehow the physics of the ocean has to bring those nutrients back to the sea surface so that the phytoplankton (the single-celled plants that form the basis of ocean food chains) can grow. So, the nutrients do not directly feed the fish, but they do support the plankton ecosystems at the base of the food chain. The overturning circulation (as in the video) does bring nutrients back to the surface - mainly in the Southern Ocean, from where they can then be circulated into the rest of the ocean. The nutrients can also be mixed upward from a few hundred metres directly to the surface by, for instance, strong winds at the sea surface or strong surface water mixing in winter. I hope that helps.

[@chery354]

Concept got cleared

[@eoinllewellyn]

thank you soo important to understand for climate change and future proofing my country Ireland , well buying it some time. The AMOC is working today for us keeping Ireland at 16 C while France and Spain are breaking May records going into29- 34 C and possibly over

[@therealKINDLE]

So what happens if Carbon Dioxide is not allowed to be released? It builds up? Is that why the Oceans have been storing so much CO2? And how does the content of CO2 we put into the atmosphere stop more from being released at the end of the cycle? Thanks for the video.

[@jonathansharples8130]

If you pick some deep water and look at its CO2, it'll have roughly the concentration of CO2 that would have been 100% saturated when that water was last in contact with the atmosphere. The concentration of CO2 needed for the water to be at 100% saturation depends mainly on the water temperature when at the surface (warm water can hold less CO2) and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere (more atmospheric CO2 will try to push more CO2 into the sea surface). So, as we increase CO2 in the atmosphere, then the amount that the surface water can absorb (to reach the 100% saturation) increases. There is a range of CO2 concentrations in the deep ocean reflecting the ages of the water since last at the surface, with each concentration telling us something about what the atmospheric CO2 was when the water was at the surface. If deep water with high CO2 concentration returns to the surface and warms up, then we might expect the CO2 to be released back into the atmosphere. Except during the water's journey through the deep ocean we have increased the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere - so the water might even be able to absorb more CO2 to get to the new 100% saturation value.

[@KJ_2020]

Can you explain the recent news saying that this system is now unstable and could collapse, how that might happen, and what the result will look like?

[@jonathansharples8130]

As far as I understand it (it's not directly my field!), it goes something like this. The water that sinks in the North Atlantic does so because (1) it cools as it moves north which makes it denser, and (2) it is quite salty (saltier water is denser). In fact this is why the sinking does not happen in the North Pacific - Pacific water is less salty so even though it cools it does not get dense enough to sink. So there are two ways that the changing climate can affect the overturning current. First, the water is gradually warming as the climate warms, so the density of the water reaching the North Atlantic is gradually reducing - eventually it could become too light to sink, and the overturning circulation would stop. Second, as the climate warms the Arctic sea ice, plus Greenland icecap, are melting - this introduces more freshwater into the North Atlantic, which will dilute the normally salty water making it less dense and unable to sink and/or produce a fresh water cap that simply prevents the Atlantic water moving northward (this was the premise of the film The Day After Tomorrow - though in the film the current shutdown process with physically unrealistic speed).

[@KJ_2020]

@@jonathansharples8130 Thank you so much for taking the time to explain it.

[@bma1955alimarber]

very good explanation of AMOC, but what you did not talk too much about was: 1.1 how cold water dissolute carbon dioxides? 2.1 how the cold ocean water brings nutrients to marine living organisms, like tortes and fishes. how climate change, affects the kinetics of the circulation of ocean currents. Isn't it?

[@jonathansharples8130]

Good points! I certainly talk about those other aspects when I'm teaching our students - but for the short video of the lab experiment I wanted to keep it more focused. See also the reply to KJ 2020's question earlier in the comments where I suggested how climate warming might alter the AMOC.

[@purnimasingh8923]

Will this speed up the upwelling of cold water near the equator?

[@jonathansharples8130]

In the tank experiment, yes - the rate of the downward dense water sinking will affect the rate of upwelling at the "equator". In the real ocean the return upwelling occurs elsewhere (Indian Ocean and Pacific), but again the rate of the dense water sinking will play a role in the upwelling. This is forced just by continuity - sinking water in one place must be balanced be rising water elsewhere.

[@litvinenkoalexander5331]

Excellent. Sometimes it is better to see deme one time than to solve math equations 200 times.

[@haroldbridges515]

Why is there more life in the sea at higher latitudes and colder températures such as plankton for example while the opposite is true of life on land?

[@jonathansharples8130]

Nice question! Think of the plants in the ocean as the base of marine food chains. These marine plants are microscopic, single-celled photosynthesisers. Like all plants they need light and nutrients. So, the subtropics might seem like a good place for them because there is plenty of light. But these microscopic plants have a problem than land plants do not have. Nutrients in the ocean tend to be in higher concentrations at depth - 100s of metres below the sea surface. Light is absorbed in the ocean very quickly - so the zone where photosynthesis can happen is only the upper 10s - 100 or so metres. So the microscopic plants have the problem that the key resources that they need (light and nutrients) are separated by 100s of metres. At higher latitudes the strong seasonality in the weather is key to helping the microscopic plants. Each winter the surface water cools and sinks (because cooler water is denser - like in the video). The sinking water forces deeper water to move up to the surface - and that deeper water brings nutrients with it that the microscopic plants can use up at the sea surface where there is also plenty of light. There's a nice video here: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2076 which shows the seasonal pulsing of the microscopic plant growth. At temperate and high latitudes this pulsing is dependent on the winter re-supply of nutrients to the sea surface.

[@haroldbridges515]

@@jonathansharples8130 Uh-oh. That implies that injecting iron sulfate into the ocean in order to stimulate plankton growth that will in turn sequester CO2 from the air and maybe the sea water isn't going to be able to turn those large stretches of blue water in the tropics into green water full of thriving plankton since the other nutrients beyond iron will still be out of reach. I thought it was an idea too good to be true.

[@a.c.a.7125]

Si la traduccion al español es correcta... El fondo marino esta saturado de CO2 y en este momento del ciclo AMOC estaria el oceano purgando hacia la atmosfera gran parte del CO2 acumulado durante siglos?... Entonces sequias o edad de hielo?... O tal vez nada que en los ultimos 10.000 años ya hubiera pasado una o mas veces.

[@jonathansharples8130]

If I understand your question: atmospheric CO2 is currently very high, so the deep water that returns to the surface today needs to absorb more CO2 to get to 100% saturation (because the last time the water was at the surface was 1000 years ago when there was much less CO2 in the atmosphere). That high CO2 water then sinks as it continues its AMOC journey, and in 1000 years will return to the surface. If in 1000 years atmospheric CO2 has decreased (we can be optimistic!) then the water would release some CO2 back to the atmosphere. If atmospheric CO2 has instead continued to increase (being pessimistic, but probably realistic) then the water again needs to absorb more CO2 to get to 100% saturation. I hope that makes sense.

[@a.c.a.7125]

@@jonathansharples8130 estoy de acuerdo

[@alistair2687]

wow

[@vincentrobinson9325]

👍

[@keithsarty3039]

This planet is DOOMED 🤦‍♂️ SteveWillDoIt (a 21 year old kid who publicly spends lots of money and does slightly outrageous things) has over 4 million subscribers and millions of views daily, everyone watching his absolutely pointless crap.. People really need to see this video and others alike.. Extremely great job at explaining how the Atlantic works! ❤

[@adilafateha4365]

nicee

[@818plumbing7]

But I thought tik tok was a top priority!..... fukin humans ..

[@robertmanella528]

Who cares!!! So England becomes a block of ice!! How can we make the current stop faster and turn England into a block of ice!!!