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Selects: How Ocean Currents Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: All right, everyone, Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Here on a wonderful sunny Saturday afternoon, everywhere I can
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: forecast into the future and guarantee that wherever you are
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: right now, it is a lovely, wonderful Saturday afternoon. This
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: one harkens back to June fourth, twenty fifteen, which was
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: also a lovely sunny day, but probably just a Tuesday
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: or a Thursday. This one is how ocean currents work,
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  Speaker 2: and it was super fascinating.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Never knew anything about.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: It, and now I do, and now you do too.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know. A production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: Chuck Bryant, and Jerry And this is stuff you should know,
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: the one about ocean currents.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: We should start titling our episodes like Friends did.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the one where Ross talks about ocean current Yeah, the.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: One where Chuck's eyes glazed over.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: I love this stuff, man, Yeah, Like Earth's science really
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: gets me jazzed. That's good, it really does. Like it's
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: so like it's very detailed.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot to it.
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  Speaker 3: It's often oversimplified, but it's also very understandable, and when
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: you really like learn about it, you realize what an
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: elegant system the whole thing is. Sure, maybe not necessarily
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: a living organism, but I could see how someone would
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: characterize it as such.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that. It's good intro.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: That's what I got.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: So, yes, title ocean currents, well, not title, that's part
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: of the ocean currency.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: It's a type of current. Yeah, it's under the current umbrella.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I've misspoken in the first ten seconds.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: I think it's funny that in this article the word
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: current refers to the motion of water when speaking of water.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Is that what it says?
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking of water. Yea, the word current refers to
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: the motion of the water.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a little clumsy Miriam's defines.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, this is about ocean currents. There are all
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: kinds of currents, river currents, yeah, you know, there's currents
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: in marshes and swamps and currents all over the place.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: But this is about ocean currents.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, as long as water's not stagnant, there's currents present.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: If it's stagnant, it's bad news. Jack mosquitoes disease.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: Sure, but then again, junk you can make the case
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: that if it's not stagnant, if there's a current, it'll
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: carry your car away in the blink of an eye.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Don't even think about it.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Boy, did you see the photos of the Downtown Connector
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: the other day in Atlanta when it flooded. No, apparently
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: the storm drains backed up in the downtown Connector of
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Atlanta was a lake.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Wow, Like it literally stopped traffic.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: I can believe that. Yeah, people in Atlanta don't know
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: how to drive in the rain to begin with.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know about that really. Yeah, that's all
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: we do is driving the rain. Man, people in La
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: don't drive in the rain.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Seems to me like everybody's brain just drops a couple
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: of years when rain starts, and everyone starts like bumping
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: into everybody else and like driving it two miles an
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: hour and.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: You just like pedal through the metal. Yeah, what's different?
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: All the time? I got good tires.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, looks as you like tire stores.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: I don't like tires stores, but I'm willing to spend
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: time there to get good tires.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: That move water away from my car so I can
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: drive really fast no matter what the weather.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: You should start your retireble on.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: I want to point out Jerry just sighed heavily at
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: this tangent.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: I think your retirement business should be Josh's Tire House Emporium. Yeah,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: and then have a really sweet setup. We'd be like
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: buying tires here is like no place else on earth.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you got Wi Fi. You got a coffee machine.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: Well there's coffee.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Well, no, I mean resta.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Oh gotcha, like a you know, a little mini Starbucks
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: right there in your tires. Sure, games have icebreakers, meet
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: and greets.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I could serve icebreakers, gum too.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: You have tender tender day.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: Okay, you know else, I don't know, that's all I got.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Aroma therapy would be good.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be a big one massage.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, that's my it's my plan. B all right,
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: Josh's tire Warehouse and Porium, I think is what we
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: came up with.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Sure, Josh's big House of tires or house of big tires.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: Okay, So ocean currents, we're back to it. So one
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: of the things that I did not realize, Chuck, when
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: researching this is that ocean currents they're they're old, but
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: there they aren't permanent. They haven't always been around. Yeah,
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: currents change, you know, some currents have been at it
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  Speaker 3: for thousands and thousands of years. Other currents change months
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: and month. They're very fickle in some cases. But there
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: are some really ancient currents, some ancient ocean currents out
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: there that are very old and have been this way since,
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: say like like the Gulf Stream has been around for
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: about five million years, ever since the Isthmus of Panama. Yeah,
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: pretty cool stuff, huh.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: I think what I found the most interesting was that
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: ocean currents they have a purpose. You know, it's not
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: just like water moving around willy nilly. You know, if
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: it wasn't for ocean currents, there would be no life
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: in Antarctica. Well maybe not all of Antarctica, but no
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: ocean marine life.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: They make that possible.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: But that's an important point. Like if there's no ocean
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: marine life, then there's no like say there's no fido plankton. Sure,
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: there's no fital plankton. There's no fishies eating the fyto plankton.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: There's no fishies around to eat the fyto plankton. There's
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: no seals to eat the fishies. If there's no seals,
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: like everything finds its support, its basis in that ocean life. Absolutely,
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: that's all supported by the currents.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: That's right.
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  Speaker 3: So the fact that as purpose, it's very teleological of you, chuck,
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: thank you. So let's not put this off any longer.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about different types of currents.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: You can't talk about tire stores anymore.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: No, Okay, we're done with the tire stores. Like I
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: started to get nauseated just talking that much about tire stores.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Oh really, all right, I don't feel good.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Well let's start with surface currents then, buddy, I'll bring
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: you back to the ocean. Earth science, your home, Earth
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: sciences that you love. Surface currents occur about three to
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: four hundred meters deep and above.
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  Speaker 3: That.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're called surface.
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  Speaker 3: Currents, right, and they're driven by the wind.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: They make up for about ten percent of the ocean.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: And if you've ever gone to the beach, you've seen
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: coastal currents.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Surface currents. There's a couple of types. Coastal is one
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  Speaker 1: of them.
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  Speaker 2: You've seen them in action, right, like playing in the
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: sand as a little kid or as an adult. You're
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  Speaker 2: seeing coastal surface currents at work.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 3: So let's step back one more degree. So service. Currents
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: are created by wave.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Action, that's right.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: Especially coastal currents are created by wave action, which is
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: created by wind. Waves are created by wind. And you
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: know Buckminster Fuller, the inventor of the geodesic dome, among
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: other great things. Sure he was the person who pointed
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: out that the wind doesn't blow, the wind sucks. That's
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: a good point, right, So and so if coastal currents
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: begin with waves, waves begin with wind. Wind begins with
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: heat because at the equator you have a lot of
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: sunshine all year round and it's very warm, as anyone
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: who's been near the equator can attest. And that heat
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  Speaker 3: heats up air. And as the air heats up, it
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  Speaker 3: moves away from the equator. It's like, I gotta go
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  Speaker 3: cool off. It moves towards the poles north end south
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  Speaker 3: and as it moves toward the poles, it cools down
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  Speaker 3: and turns. Background is like I need to heap back
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  Speaker 3: up at the equator. Yeah, right, And as a result
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: of this, you have wind. And this wind, yeah, pushes
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  Speaker 3: on the surface of the water, transfers some of its
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  Speaker 3: energy in the form of friction to the water surface,
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  Speaker 3: and creates waves. And those waves transfer the energy to
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  Speaker 3: the shoreline, and when they come in in an angle,
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  Speaker 3: that's when you get that coastal current. Right.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like if you've again, if you've ever been to
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  Speaker 2: the beach and you see the tide or the waves
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  Speaker 2: coming in at that angle, and you see it moving
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  Speaker 2: with the beach, Like if you've ever been out playing
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  Speaker 2: on like a raft as a little kid, you look
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  Speaker 2: up an hour later and your parents are like half
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  Speaker 2: a mile down the beach from where you start, right.
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  Speaker 2: It's a bit of a panicky situation.
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  Speaker 3: It is. And also you're like, what kind of parents
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: do I have that they just let me drift half
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  Speaker 3: a mile?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, they're passed out in the sand at
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  Speaker 1: that point.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So that is called.
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  Speaker 2: When a wave breaks on the beach at that angle,
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  Speaker 2: it's gonna pull sediment and sand and water down in
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  Speaker 2: what's known as a long shore current. That is it's
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  Speaker 2: directed off parallel, also perpendicular, but the parallel movement is
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  Speaker 2: the long shore current.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. It's like when a wave comes in in an
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  Speaker 3: angle to the shore, Yep, it distributes its energy, part
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  Speaker 3: of it directly onto the shore, part of it parallel
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  Speaker 3: to the shore. That's that long short current, like you said,
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  Speaker 3: and one of the things that it does you also said,
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: is it takes that sand and other stuff and deposits
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  Speaker 3: it elsewhere further down and along the way. It creates
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: things like barrier islands and sand bars and all that stuff.
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  Speaker 3: And that's ever shifting, ever moving, eroding and depositing of
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  Speaker 3: sand and sediment, and those little underwater and sometimes above
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  Speaker 3: water deposits create other types of current, specifically a riptide current.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the long shore drift.
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  Speaker 2: And like, if you've ever seen like the beach curve
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  Speaker 2: back end pretty hard. The water can't make that turn really,
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: so it's just gonna deposit stuff and sort of drop
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: it off there at the end of that point, and
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: it'll build up in what's known as a.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: Spit, right, And so yeah, all those obstructions, all of
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: those deposits form obstructions for waves when they're going back out.
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  Speaker 3: Once they transfer their energy, they're like, oh, I'm pretty
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: far inland. I need to get back out the ocean.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: And so it backs up right, and as it does,
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  Speaker 3: it encounters these underwater barriers that it itself have deposited.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: It's kind of a big ironic moment, and so it
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: can't get back out to see as fast as it
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: wants because it's running in these obstructions. And when there's
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: like a break in the obstruction, like a sandbar or
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: something like that, a break in the sandbar, it provides
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: a natural funnel and that creates a riptide current.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, like, hey, look at that little narrow channel. I'm
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: gonna take all this water that would normally just flow
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: out and I and easy, I'm going to send it
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: through there, and I'm gonna grab your little kid and
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: take it, take them.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: With me, right this It creates basically suction, just like
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: when you open a drain in a bathtub and it
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: starts to drain, it drains pretty quick.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's dangerous, like that's how you drown when you're
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: swimming in the ocean.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: You hear about strong rip currents and inclement weather, and
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: it's no joke. Even really good swimmers can get caught
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: in a rip. Oh yeah, And it's bad news.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Riptide, very bad news. Yeah. And then there's some other
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: currents that are created that don't just occur at the
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: at the shore, but they do. They occur in the
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: ocean and at the shore. Yeah, there's this thing called upwelling. Yeah,
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: like this stuff and upwelling can happen in a few
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: different ways, but as far as the coast is concerned,
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: when wind comes in and it basically blows water away
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: from an area, yeah, like from the shore, right, water
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: likes to try to even itself out. So it's some
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: water's blown away from the surface, the stuff that's below it,
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: the deeper water will come up and basically replace it. Yeah,
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: and that's upwelling.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: It's another like what strikes me when you look at
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: wind and all these currents, everything is circular almost.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Right, so a lot of spinning going on.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a really distinct relationship between wind and water.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: It's inseparable, especially when you're talking about global winds and
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: currents together, right, Yeah, but both of them are broken
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: down to fluid dynamics, and they do form these circles
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: and cycles and clockwise motions and counterclockwise motions depending on
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: where you are in the world.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And in the case of upwelling and down welling,
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: it's not a horizontal spin, but it is a vertical
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: from top to bottom and then from bottom back up
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: to the top.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you want to talk about that was which one.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Well both, it's the same pattern from top to bottom
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: and bottom to top with upwelling and down welling.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: Right. And the whole thing about upwelling and down welling,
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: whether it's at the shore or in the ocean, is
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: that the ocean is kind of It's not like if
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: you take a slice of ocean at the top and
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: you take a slice of ocean at the bottom, very
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: different and you look at them, yeah, under a microscope
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: or test them for whatever, you know, using some sort
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: of spectroscope, maybe some sort of oscillate or glavin or
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: something like that, or just look at it. Yeah, you're
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: going to find that there's it's like two different types
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: of water, even though it's from the same part. It's
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: from the same section of ocean, right, Yeah, And the
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: stuff at the top is going to be very oxygen rich.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: There's going to be a lot of life, vital plant
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: and that kind of stuff, but not too many nutrients.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: The stuff at the bottom is going to be lousy
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: with CO two yeah, cold, yeah, very cold, and a
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: lot of nutrients. Right, And when both of these things
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: are needed at different spots. Yeah, So the upwelling and
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: the down welling creates this kind of gas exchange, in
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: nutrient exchange throughout the ocean, and the oxygen at the
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: top when it's deposited down lower. Thanks to down welling,
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: all of that oxygen circulates downward through the ocean and
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: all the fishies that need oxygen in their gills get
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: to breathe it in, right.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And with upwelling, like I mentioned earlier in Antarctica
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: where it's super cold and you would not expect marine
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: life to do so well, it is because of the
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: upwelling that brings the nutrients from the bottom up to
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: the top.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Yep, and that cycle and that's called life.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: And one other really neat thing about upwelling and downwelling
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: is the oxygen that's at the top of the ocean.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: Were it to just sit there for very long and dissolve,
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: we would have a very big problem because all of
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: that life, once it dies, would decay very quickly up top.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah that's not good.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: No, it wouldn't because anaerobic bacteria would begin to thrive
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: and we'd have a overabundance of hydrogen sulfide, which would
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: lead to ocean acidification, which would mean the end of
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: the world basically.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So that nutrient swap is very important for everybody
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: on the planet.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: Yep. And there's this elegant solution to the oceans that
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: happens every day everywhere in the ocean thanks to upwelling
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: and downwelling.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: All right, well it's a good start, my friend. My
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: eyes are not glazed over. Actually good, they're sharp, full
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: of life. We will talk after this break about some
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: more surface currents. All right, Josh, there's more than one
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: kind of surface current. We covered the I kind of
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: like that first part, but there's also surface ocean currents.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: And again the wind is the big contribute to how
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: these babies form, and specifically, I guess we should talk
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: about the Coriolis effect.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a this is a game changer, as
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: people who read self help books on airplanes would call it. Right.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: So yeah, so again, it all starts with heat, and
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: all that heat is found in its thickest part at
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: the equator. And my brain is broken. So at the
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: equator it's the hottest, right.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: That's right. And it's also also spinning faster at the
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: equator than at.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: The poles, right it is, Okay, So it's the Earth
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: that is Yeah, So at the equator it's hot, it's
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: spinning faster because of the spin. Because of the heat.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: The ocean is actually about eight centimeters high, higher here
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: than at the rest of the ocean.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so much higher.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: So there's a right, it's just enough to make water
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: flow away from the equator. Now, plus you've got wind
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: that's whipped up because hot air at the equator starts
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: moving northward and cools down and that creates wind. Right,
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: So if the Earth didn't rotate, you would still have
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: these things, but wind would travel in a straight line
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: away from the equator toward the poles, cool down and
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: turn around and come back in a straight line.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: That's right. But that's not the case.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: No, it isn't because the Earth does rotate and it
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: produces the Coriolis effect.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a curve.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Basically, it curves to the right and the northern hemisphere
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: and to the left in the southern hemisphere.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: Right, So it makes wind curve, and since wind drives
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: surface currents, it makes surface currents curve as well. Right,
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: that's right. So what's really cool is the ocean has
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: its own topography. Oh yeah, it's definitely not flat. Anybody
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: who's looked at it ice, you could be like, oh,
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: it's pretty choppy. But if you could step back even
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: further and you had the right kind of topographical glasses on,
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: maybe yeah, you would see that there's like valleys and
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: and mountains, and maybe not mountains, but little tiny hills
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: and valleys in the ocean.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: So, like I said, it has its own topography. And
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: this is created by those winds that push on the water.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: And as they're pushing the water up and the Coriolis
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: effect is turning it, some water starts to kind of mound.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: So in some parts of the ocean you have water
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: that forms a mound that's about like three to six
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: feet tall.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It doesn't sound intuitive, No, I don't water mounting
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: up on itself.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: You think of it as flat. Yeah, but there is
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: actually water that's mounded up into little hills. Yeah okay.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: And so that means that gravity wants to push this
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: water downward, right, But it doesn't just go back down
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: the hill, because the Coriolis effect pushes it upward. And
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: the net outcome is that instead the water just says,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: how about it just go around instead? Yeah, you stay
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: up here on the mound, you stay down here. But
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: I am going to just go around. And what it
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: does is, since a mound is roughly circular, it creates
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: a current that goes around these things, around these mounds.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: And there's five major ones in the entire world I
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: know where you're headed at, and they form what are
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: called gyres.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: That's right, g y r e s and they are
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, and
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: then the Indian Ocean has its very own gyre. Yes,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: there were smaller ones around Antarctica, but those are the
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: five major gyres.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: We talked about the Gulf Stream earlier.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: That is a part of the North Atlantic gyre, and
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: it carries forty five hundred times the water of the
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: entire Mississippi River.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Gulf Stream does.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the Gulf Stream is.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: The hero of all gyres.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: It is it moves. Let me see, I've got to
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: find this one because this is so amazing. So the
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Gulf Stream, at any given point, it moves water at
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: a rate of fifteen superdomes worth per second. So you
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: remember the superdome in Louisiana. Yes, sure, say you filled
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: it with water, okay, and then you took that but
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: copied it fifteen fourteen more times h So you have
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: fifteen super domes full of water. That's how much water
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: passes through any given point per second. Okay in the
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: Gulf Stream, all right, that's a lot of water.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: How many big max is that it's trillions of big macs,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: billions and billions served.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: But the Gulf Stream itself is actually it's technically the
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: western boundary current of the North Atlantic Gyre.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's going to carry warm water. It has
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: a big impact in the world.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: It's gonna carry warm water up north from the Gulf
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: of Mexico. And that's why if you're living on the
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: east coast of Florida, you're gonna have cooler summers and
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: warmer winters. Western Europe is going to be a lot
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: warm than other places on its exact same latitude. And
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: this is all because of the Gulf Stream.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: You can deposit bodies in it if you're a dexter. Yeah,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: and those things are gonna yep, see a later body.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it'll probably get carried to England and they'll be
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: like blind, he what was this? So that's just the
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: Gulf Stream. There's actually at least four major currents that
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: form the boundary currents of the North Atlantic Gyre. Yeah,
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: and then the North Atlantic Gyre is just one. We've
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: also talked about gyres before with the Great Pacific garbage Patch.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we covered did we do waves or did we
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: just do We did waves.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: We did rogue waves too, but we covered waves and surfing.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, remember that.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: But these these boundary currents are created again in part
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: by the winds flowing away from the equator, the Coriolis effect,
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: turning the waves and the mounds of water circulating the
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: waves in it around them.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: So you've got these like just clockwise or counterclock depending
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: on which hems for you, are currents that are just
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: massive that move water around and again they cycle nutrients.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: Like you said, they affect the weather, yeah, because they
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: deposit warm water from the south up to all the
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: way up to England apparently. So you know, England is
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: on the same latitude as like some glacial parts of Canada. Yeah,
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: that makes sense, but their winners are like nothing compared
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: to that, you know, thank you Ocean. Same thing as
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: a Bermuda is very temperate, it has very nice climate,
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: and it's on the same latitude as North Carolina. Which
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: is you know, it can get kind of cold there.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, sure, that's all thanks to the Gulf Stream.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Thank you Gulf Stream.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: And if you want to thank the Gulf Stream, Chuck,
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: you can thank Ben Franklin because he's the one who
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: named it.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Oh really.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah. As the first Postmaster General of the United States,
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: he wanted to figure out why mail took so many
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: more weeks longer to get from England to the US
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: than it did from the US to England.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Because they're going against traffic exactly.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: But he didn't know that, and he found out and
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: he took some measurements and roughly charted the golf stream
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: back in the eighteenth century.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Man, he was a smart dude, he really was. That's
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: pretty amazing. Yeah, I didn't know he dabbled in oceanography.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: But again, the golf stream amazing. And it's just one
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: boundary current of one major gyre.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of a hypnotic if you look at
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: these motion maps of global motion maps of like trade
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: winds and ocean currents.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I could watch those videos all day.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just stuff spinning around and like traveling around,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: and it's really it's soothing.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: And especially when they do like heat gradients or topographical gradients.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: So it's really colorful too, and it's ever shifting. Oh yeah,
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: you can just get a little jewel out of the
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: corner of my mouth when I watch though.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: It's about as good as watching Fantasia.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: There's one other thing we should say about those surf
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: currents is they drag on the water below them, right,
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: So the wind is transferring its energy to the surface
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: of the water.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it drags a little bit less is the
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: deeper you go, right?
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: Apparently though the current that the motion of water usually
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: goes in opposition to the motion of wind. So what
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: you end up having if you could take a column
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: slice from top to bottom of the ocean, you would
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: find that the water ultimately is making a very long
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: downward spiral. Yeah, and that's called the Ekman spiral.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: That there's a graphic of that that looks pretty neat
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: as well, pretty neat again, mesmerizing stuff, So Chuck.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: After this we will talk about the global conveyor belt.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: That's my favorite part, I think, okay, Ken, all right,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: my favorite part of ocean currency ocean currents. It works
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: the deep ocean current aka the global conveyor belt.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: It is fascinating to me.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: If you're talking about this is about ninety percent, if
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: the surface currents are about ten percent, about ninety percent
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: of the ocean's water is part of the deep ocean current,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: and we can't see it because we're up here on
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Earth and we are not deep under the water. It's
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: invisible to us, right, But it circles the globe at
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: afore sixteen times as strong as all of the world's
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: rivers combined.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: Which is again still not as much as the the
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: Gulf Stream. Yeah, still pretty impressive.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: It's pretty impressive. Yeah, but it's slow, so like water.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: It moves super water a few centimeters a second, whereas
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: the Gulf Stream moves waters at like a couple hundred
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: centimeters a second.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: I think the conveyor belt, they said, like one patch
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: will take a thousand years to completely around, yeah, the circuit.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it takes ten years for water to make
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: a full circuit on the North Atlantic Gyre.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so ten years yeah, and then a thousand years
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: right wow. Yeah, So the global conveyor belt, it is
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: driven by density, which I think is pretty interesting.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because up to this point it's all been driven
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: by wind, which is ultimately driven by heat. This is
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: also driven by heat in a way, but in a
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: completely different way.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, heat and salt thermohaline circulation, the thermo being heat
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: and haleine being salt.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Warm water holds less salt.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: So what happens is like, let's say you're in the
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Antarctic and water freezes to form an iceberg or water
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: evaporates either way, salt is not going to be a
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: part of that equation.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: No, the salt is left behind as Yeah, water freezes,
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: and you know icebergs aren't salty their fresh water.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the salt is left behind. It's got to
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: go somewhere. It is going to be very dense at
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: that point. So it is going to be cold and
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: dense and sink to the ocean floor.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: Right. So remember back when we're talking about right, and
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: we were talking about coastal coastal currents and up welling
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: and down welling.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this plays a part.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: When water sinks, other water moves in to replace it.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: And so what starts off here and this actually I
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: think starts around the North Pole definitely in the North Atlantic.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: As that water sinks and moves downward, it creates. It
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: starts this current that goes all the way around the
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: world and again takes a thousand years to complete.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it just kick starts it basically.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: And it's called the conveyor belt, I think because it
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: never stops moving and it's super slow.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I kept getting that, remember that whatever that Bugs
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: Bunny assembly line song? Like it was always the same.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Like, dude, don't remember that.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: I can't remember it either. Now I have our theme
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: song in my head. I'm trying to think about it.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: But there's like anytime Bugs Bunny messed around on a
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: conveyor bell or something, they use the same like composition.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, I'll try to find it all right.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: So, once this water hits Antarctica, basically the same thing
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: happens all over again. The cold water is gonna split.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Some of it heads to the Indian Ocean, some heads
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: to the Pacific, and this upwelling and down welling, this
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: cycle just starts all over again.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah. As it moves closer to like the Indian Ocean
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: and the Pacific, it gets closer to the equator, the
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: water starts to warm up, it loses some of its salinity,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: it starts to thin out a little bit, and so
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: it rises, and when it does, it takes all those
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: nutrients and all that CO two up with it. And
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: it's very much like the gas exchange that occurs in
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: the human cardio pulmonary system. Right.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not homeostasis, but it almost feels like that.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: If you took the whole system overall. Yeah, it's homeostatic
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: for sure, but it's like that by this exchange, this
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: transfer from one part to another, from the deep ocean
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: to the surface. And this as it reaches the surface
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: and it depletes its nutrients, it's carried back around. It
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: basically tries to go up hits Alaska, Russia, Asia, North Asia,
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: Northeast Asia, and turns back around and goes ends up
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: finally back in the North Atlantic, up near the North Pole.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: And gets cold and starts all over.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Right, And by the time it gets there, it's basically
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: nutrient depleted and it sinks and it starts to recharge again.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: That's right in that just like blood.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: In your in your cardiopulmonary system, it gets depleted, it
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: ends up going past the lungs, it transfers out CO two,
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: it gets in oxygen. This is just the opposite. This
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: is transferring out oxygen and gaining CO two and nutrients.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Way to feel connected to the Earth when you start
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: looking at things like that, you know, yeah, it's not
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: so different.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: It's I mean, we're all connected, man.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: And again there's a big nutrient swap meat happening as
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: well with the conveyor belt like we're talking about, and
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: basically kind of has the same effect as those surface
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: currents do. Yeah, as far as exchanging the oxygen and
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: the CO two and nutrients and just moving everything where
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: it needs to be.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: I thought this was pretty cool. In this article it
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: talks about there's also a density driven to Thermohalian current
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: in the Mediterranean because the Mediterranean is apparently saltier than
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: the Atlantic, and as a result this gradient. Anytime you
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: have a difference in something, whether it's height, temperature, salinity, density,
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: homeostasis is the ultimate goal, so it's going to try
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: to go toward the middle, from higher to lower. Yeah,
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: and this is the same thing. So it creates that
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: oceanic current. And apparently in World War two, subs would
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: run silent by going in and out of the Mediterranean
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: without their engines on, just using that current.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Oh really, Yeah, so they would run like a glider.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Deep run, silent run deep exactly. Wow, that's frightening. All right.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Are we at tidal currents?
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: You don't have to be frightened. It was years ago. Yeah,
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: we're at tidal currents.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: I think they still do that.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: No, there's no submarines anymore. We haven't been at war
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: for years.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: They retired all the submarines.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right. Tidal currents are generated by the tides.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: We did talk about, like we said, I think in
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: the Rugue waves and surfing about tides and waves.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: The gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun, but
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: more of the Moon because the Moon is closer, Yeah,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: is what's gonna cause that bulge on the sides, and
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: it's going to drive the water level at that bulge. Basically,
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: it's going to decrease. It's going to increase where it's
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: aligned with the moon and decrease at the halfway point
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: between those two places.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: Right, and so, And it's always changing because the moon,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: the position of the Moon and the Sun and the
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: Earth are always changing, but they change in a very
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: predictable manner. So we can predict when the tides happen.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: But if you just took a snapshot at any given
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: point of the tidal effect, right. And if you imagine
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: that the moon is on one side, the Sun is
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: on one side, and the Earth is on the middle,
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: the world's oceans around the Earth stretch out on the sides,
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: and because of that gravitational pull, and just imagine that
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: it's always like that. It's always just this elliptical oval
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: shape the world's oceans are and then the Earth, the
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: dry Earth, is spinning within that and so the land
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: masses on the Earth are always coming in and out
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: of that bulge, and so they're going from higher to
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: lower tide. It's kind of it just makes it easier
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: for me, rather than to think of the oceans moving
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: around the Earth, to think of the Earth spinning within
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: the ocean, and that causes the change in tides.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: That does something for you.
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: Does it all the way?
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: And these are different than the other currents who talked
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: about because they're not it's not a continuous stream and
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: they switch directions. That's the high tide and low tide
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: and it doesn't impact like the ocean.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Current that much. It's shoreline stuff.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's pretty important. I mean, like fish, fishes
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: lay eggs, and sure low tide will pull those eggs
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: out into the open ocean and those fitch they'll hatch.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: It also brings food in from the ocean into like
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: marshland that kind.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Of stuff, yeah, or washes up jellyfish yep. And to
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: delight the children on the beach.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Yes, but don't touch them. You can just look.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: And when the tide is rising, that flow is directed
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: toward the store.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: That's called the flood current.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: We've heard about that flood and the EBB, and the
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: EBB is when it's directed back out to sea.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: That's right, and that makes it all very predictable.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Like you said, we can go to the beach and
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: listen to the tide report.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: That's also a very relaxing thing to do.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah, listen to that like the am
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: like fishing and charts and tidle reports.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very relaxing for me.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: I like it. I remember growing up listening to like
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: grain future reports and hog reports.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Oh really like that. Pork bellies, yeah, pork futures.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, chuck, just a couple more things. So, like, there
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: are plenty of other currents and there's also plenty of
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: other wind patterns that drive these currents. They do things
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: like create the El Nino, yeah, which basically takes weather,
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: thunderstorms and stuff around the equator and move them in
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: different places that we're not used to, which can lead
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: to droughts and floods depending on where you are. And
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: then also there's a lot of concern among scientists who
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: are who know about this kind of stuff that changes.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: Climate change is going to ultimately and negatively affect the
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: global conveyor belt because as the Earth warms up, more
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: and more icebergs are gonna melt, creating much less salinity.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: And since the water will be less saline and warmer,
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: it's going to sink less. And so that global conveyor
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: belt that relies on cold, dense, salty water to sink
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: to get it started, is going to slow. And that
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: could be bad because remember it's all that's the global
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: nutrient exchange. That wouldn't be good, No, because then the
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: phytoplankton dies. And again when the phytoplankton dies, the fishies die,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: seals die.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Polar bears are upset, well, the poor seals die. Either way, Yeah,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: it is very sad.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you got anything else, No, that's it. That's ocean currents.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: If you want to know more about ocean currents, you
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: can type those words into the search bar at HowStuffWorks
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: dot com. And since I said search bar, it's time
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: for a listener mail.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna call this A French speaker doesn't like our
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: heavy metal music interludes.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: There's a few people out there who.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Don't, So here we go. I'm going to read this
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: just as it came. I like you very much. Sorry
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: for my bad English, but I speak French so it compensates.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: I have a little problem. I feel like I need
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: to tell you, please.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Don't take it the wrong way. I have had problems
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: to sleep for a while now, and I found that
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: listening to podcasts helped.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Me a lot.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: I put my iPod under my pillow while it plays,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: or I put only one head sound thing in one ear.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: I love your podcast because it's very interesting, intelligent, and
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: also your voices are nice and you are never yelling,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: so I do fall asleep every single time. This is
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: a good thing, I swear. Of course, it takes me
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: three or four times to listen to all of it.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Usually I relistened to it in the car. Now my problem,
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: why do you have to put loud heavy metal music
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: for a break. I always wake up in panic when
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: it starts. I do want to continue to listen to
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: you at night, I really do.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: So you have two choices.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: Either you don't change your music and think of me
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: every time and laugh, or you change it for something,
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: let's say nicer. Maybe in exchange. I'm sorry, exchange, I
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: could give you pickup lines in French orvoir of Danielle.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: I have to say hats off Danielle because I couldn't
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: write that in French.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Oh well, no, you don't speak French, do you?
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: Mpikito perfect? Thanks a lot, Danielle. We will consider removing
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: the heavy metal music, which we did before and then
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: we brought back because other people are like, bring back
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: the heavy metal music. So we're kind of caught between
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: a rock and a hard place.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Caught between an amp and a hard place.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: Yes. If you want to let us know how you
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: feel about our music or anything else, you can tweet
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: to us at sysk podcast. You can join us on
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know. You can
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: send us an email to Stuff Podcast at houstuffworks dot
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: com and it's always joined us at our home on
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: the web, Stuff Youshould Know dot Com Stuff you Should
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.