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People: Oh it was sooooo easy for people to sail about the Mediterranean sea! Odysseus was just a cheating bitch who stayed in places because he loved it! Meanwhile the currents of the Mediterranean sea:

(image obtained by the NASA SVS, UNESCO conference in Paris in 2011)

#The Mediterrannean has been characterized as “the most treacherous sea” exactly because she is so unpredictable #greek mythology #tagamemnon #the odyssey #odysseus #homeric epics #homeric poems #homer's odyssey #mediterranean #mediterranean sea #mediterranean sea currents #oceanography #odyssey #greek mythology memes #shitpost #random post #climate #ocean currents

Whorls of Sea Ice

Fresh snow shines white on the southern end of Greenland in this satellite image, taken in late February 2025. Whorls of sea ice sit off the coast, where they trace out patterns that reflect the winds and ocean currents of the region. (Image credit: L. Dauphin; via NASA Earth Observatory)

#climate change #fluid dynamics #ocean currents #physics #satellite image #science #sea ice

Earth, being 71% covered in water, is influenced by the ocean and its movements. In the Atlantic Ocean, a system of connected currents, call

From the article:

As the climate is continuously changing and the atmosphere is warming, many scientists fear that fresh water from melting polar ice sheets could significantly disrupt—or collapse—the AMOC. While a decline of the AMOC would have grave consequences, a collapse would be truly catastrophic [...] However, studies about the AMOC's long term future are uncertain. Instead of predicting the future, a team of scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) quantified the past to help inform where we could be going. In a new paper published in Nature Communications, scientists found that the AMOC has not declined in the last 60 years [...] "Based on the results, the AMOC is more stable than we thought," Vogt said. "This might mean that the AMOC isn't as close to a tipping point as previously suggested."

#ocean currents #climate change #global warming #environment #ecology #ocean ecology #AMOC #research #good news #hope #tipping point

Scientists say finding is ‘very concerning’ as collapse would be catastrophic for Europe, Africa and the Americas

Excerpt from this story from The Guardian:

The critical Atlantic current system appears significantly more likely to collapse than previously thought after new research found that climate models predicting the biggest slowdown are the most realistic. Scientists called the new finding “very concerning” as a collapse would have catastrophic consequences for Europe, Africa and the Americas.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system and was already known to be at its weakest for 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis. Scientists spotted warning signs of a tipping point in 2021 and know that the Amoc has collapsed in the Earth’s past.

Climate scientists use dozens of different computer models to assess the future climate. However, for the complex Amoc system, these produce widely varying results, ranging from some that indicate no further slowdown by 2100 to those suggesting a huge deceleration of about 65%, even when carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning are gradually cut to net zero.

The research combined real-world ocean observations with the models to determine the most reliable, and this hugely reduced the spread of uncertainty. They found an estimated slowdown of 42% to 58% in 2100, a level almost certain to end in collapse.

The Amoc is a major part of the global climate system and brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. A collapse would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts, and add 50-100cm to already rising sea levels around the Atlantic.

The Amoc is slowing because air temperatures are rising rapidly in the Arctic because of global heating. That means the ocean cools more slowly there. Warmer water is less dense and therefore sinks into the depths more slowly. This slowing allows more rainfall to accumulate in the salty surface waters, also making it less dense, and further slowing the sinking and forming an Amoc feedback loop.

#Atlantic meridional overturning circulation #Amoc #ocean currents #Gulf Stream #climate change

The reversal of ocean circulation in the southern hemisphere could double current atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ / ICM-CSIC

A major ocean current in the Southern Hemisphere has reversed direction for the first time in recorded history, in what climatologists are c

#climate change #antarctica #southern ocean #current reversal #ocean currents

Monday Musings: Why was the Cambrian Explosion possible?

Hello everyone! Did you miss me? Field season was wild but now I'm back and ready to talk more about rocks and fossils!

The Cambrian Explosion happened when marine life radiated rapidly into most of the basic body forms that we observe in modern groups today.

What made the Cambrian Period the ideal time and place for such an evolutionary burst? To get the answers, we need to go back in time just before the Paleozoic Era began.

Welcome to the Ediacaran Period, 600 million years ago. All of the continents were joined together to the form the supercontinent...Pannotia. You thought I was going to say Pangea, didn't you?

Pangea came much later. Pannotia sat on the south pole and it had a pretty massive ice cap on it. Of course, that was nothing compared to the snowball Earth o the previous period. The oceans were much cooler in this time and just like cold oceans today, it could have been the ideal breeding ground for plankton as cold water brings nutrients to the surface.

As the Ediacaran came to an end and the Cambrian began, the ice cap melted, the seas warmed up and the Pannotia began to break up.

One large continent, Gondwana, stayed at the south pole but several island continents moved toward the equator. The placements of the continents was critical to the evolutionary explosion.

Ocean currents have a huge impact on climate. If we look at this map of the Cambrian world and its ocean currents, you can see the cold currents at the mid-latitudes and poles heading to the equator where they warm up and go back to the poles to cool down.

Now, if I plug in all our important Cambrian fossil sites you'll see that a vast majority fall on or very near the equator. An increase in warm ocean water and a rise in oxygen brought on by melting ice were probably two big parts in the rise of living organisms. Cold water brings nutrients up and is circulated by ocean currents. Warm water facilitates the production of carbonates like limestone and calcite for living things like echinoderms and arthropods.