SCIENCE ALERT - Earth's climate systems are inexorably and often unexpectedly interconnected.
Dust from North Africa's Sahara Desert drifts thousands of miles to fuel food webs in the Amazon and the ocean's depths, while pollution-eating microbes hitch a ride through the atmosphere on gusts of wind or wisps of fog.
Among the most influential planet-shaping forces is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), an immense Atlantic Ocean current system that acts as a planetary conveyor belt. It brings balmy water northward from the tropics to Europe, then cycles the cooled water back south along the seafloor.
...
"It is well known that the AMOC is a big player in the world's climate system, and that it is slowing down," says Mohima Mimi, a climate dynamics researcher at the University of California, Riverside, and the study's lead author.