Stuff You Should Know - Selects: How Ocean Currents Work

Episode Date: June 24, 2023

It's easy to overlook the importance of ocean currents - they move along out at sea, while we stay mostly on land. But we are globally affected by them every day. Currents form the base of the food chain, drive weather and keep life as we know it going. Explore them with Josh and Chuck in this classic episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So, there is a ton of stuff they don't want you to know. Yeah, like does the US government really have alien technology? Or what about the future of AI? What happens when computers actually learn to think? Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover-ups, from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science, history is riddled with unexplained events. Listen to stuff they don't want you to know

on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you find your favorite shows. Hi, I'm Deli Wilde and I want to invite you to listen to my newest podcast. We are starting up to understand the patterns that make up our bodies are already existed to the true stuff. It's called the Oh My God Particle Show, or OMGPS for short.

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lovely, wonderful Saturday afternoon. This one harkens back to June 4th, 2015, which was also a lovely sunny day, but probably just a Tuesday or a Thursday. This one is how ocean currents work, and it was super fascinating, never knew anything about it, and now I do, and now you do too. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry and this is stuff you should know. The one about ocean currents.

We should start titling our episodes like friends did. Yeah, the one where Ross talks about ocean currents. Yeah, the one where Chuck's eyes glazed over. I love this stuff, man. Yeah. Like Earth Science really gets me jazzed. That's good. It really does.

Like, it's so, like, it's very detailed. Yeah. There's a lot to it. It's often oversimplified, but it's also very Understandable and when you really like learn about it you realize what an elegant system the whole thing is sure Maybe not necessarily a living organism, but I could see how someone would characterize it as such. Yeah I like that. It's good intro. Yeah, that's what I got So yes title ocean currents.

Well, not tidal. That's part of the ocean current system. It's a type of current. Yeah. It's under the current umbrella. I've mispoken the first 10 seconds. I think it's funny that in this article, the word current refers to the motion of water.

When speaking of water. Is that what it says? Yeah. When speaking of water. Is that what it says? Yeah. When speaking of water, the word current refers to the motion of the water. Yeah, yeah. That was a little clumsy. Miriams defines.

Yeah. Well, this is about ocean currents, there are all kinds of currents. River currents. Yeah. You know, there's currents in marshes and swamps and currents all over the place. But this is about ocean currents. Yeah. As long, there's currents in marshes and swamps and currents all over the place. But this is about ocean currents. Yeah. As long as water is not stagnant, there's currents present.

Yeah. And if it's stagnant, bad news, jack, mosquitoes, disease, sure. But then again, you can make the case that if it's not stagnant, if there's a current, it'll carry your car away in the blink of an eye. Don't even think about it. Boy your car away when the blink of an eye. Don't even think about it. Boy, did you see the photos of the downtown connector the other day in Atlanta when it flooded? No. Apparently, the storm drains backed up,

and the downtown connector of Atlanta was a lake. Wow, I can literally stop traffic. I can believe that. Yeah. People in Atlanta don't know how to drive in the rain to begin with. Oh, I don't know about that. Yeah. People in Atlanta don't know how to drive in the rain to begin with. Oh, I don't know about that. Really?

Yeah, that's all we do is drive in the rain. Man. People in LA don't know how to drive in the rain. Seems to me like everybody's brain just drops a couple of gears when the rain starts and everyone starts like bumping into everybody else and like driving at two miles an hour. You just like pedal to the metal. Yeah. What's different all the time.

I got good tires. Yeah. What says you like tire stores right? I don't like tire stores but I'm willing to spend time there to get good tires. Yeah. That move water away from my car so I can drive really fast no matter what the way. You should start your retirement. I want to point out Jerry just sighed heavily

at this tangent. I think your retirement business should be Josh's tire house. Emporium. Yeah, and then have a really sweet setup. We'd be like, buying tires, here's like no place else on earth. Oh yeah, do you have wifi?

You've got a coffee machine. Well, there's a coffee machine. Well, there's coffee machine. Well, I mean, a barista. Oh, gotcha. Like, you know, a little mini Starbucks right there in your tire shop. Sure. Games have icebreakers, meat and greets.

Yeah, I could serve icebreakers gum too. You get a tender day. Okay. Yeah, what else? Well, I don't know. I think a Roman therapy would be good. Yeah. It would be a big one. Massage, Yeah. All right. That's my plan B.

All right. Josh's tire warehouse in pouring, I think is what we came out of it. Sure. Josh's big house of tires. Or house of big tires. Okay, so ocean currents. Yeah. We're back to it. So one of the things that I did not realize, Chuck, when researching this is that ocean currents, they're old, but they aren't permanent. They haven't always been around. Currents change, you know, some currents have been at it for thousands and thousands of years. Other currents change months and months. They're very fickle in some cases. But there are some really ancient

currents, some ancient ocean currents out there that are very old and have been this way since say like like the Gulf Stream has been around for about five million years ever since the isthmus of Panama closed. Yeah. Pretty cool stuff, huh? Yeah, I think what I found the most interesting was that ocean currents, they have a purpose. You know, it's not just like water moving around willing, nilly. Right. You know, if it wasn't for ocean currents, there would be no life in Antarctica. Right. Well, maybe not all of Antarctica, but no ocean marine life. They make that possible. But that's an important point. Like, if there's no ocean marine life. They make that possible. But that's an important point.

Like if there's no ocean marine life, then there's no, like say there's no phytoplankton. Sure. There's no phytoplankton, there's no fishies eating the phytoplankton. There's no fishies around to eat the phytoplankton. There's no seals to eat the fishies. There's no seals.

Like everything finds its support, its basis in that ocean life. Absolutely. That's all supported by the currents. That's right. So the fact that it has purpose, it's very teleological of you, Chuck. Thank you.

So let's not put this off any longer. Let's talk about different types of currents. You can't talk about tire stores anymore. No, okay. We're done with the tire stores. Like I started to get nauseated, just talking that much about tire stores. Oh,, okay. We're done with the tire stores like I started to get nauseated Just talking that much about tire stores. Oh really? All right, I don't feel good. Well, let's start with surface currents then buddy. I'll bring you back to the to the ocean

Earth science your home earth sciences that you love surface currents occur about three to four hundred meters deep and above occur about three to 400 meters deep and above. That's why they're called surface currents. Right, and they're driven by the wind. Yeah, they make up for about 10% of the ocean. And if you've ever gone to the beach, you've seen coastal currents, surface currents.

There's a couple of types. Coastal is one of them. You see them in action. Right. Like playing in the sand is a little kid or as an adult. You're seeing coastal surface currents at work. Right. So let's step back one more degree. So, service currents are created by wave action.

That's right. Especially coastal currents are created by wave action. Yeah. They're created by wind. Waves are created by wind. And you know Buckminster Fuller, the inventor of the geodesic dome among other great things. Sure.

He was the person who pointed out that the wind doesn't blow, the wind sucks. That's a good point, right? So, and so if coastal currents begin with waves, waves begin with wind, Wind begins with heat. Because at the equator, you have a lot of sunshine all year round. And it's very warm. Yes, it is.

And it's anyone who's been near the equator can attest. And that heat heats up air. And as the air heats up, it moves away from the equator. It's like, I gotta go cool off. It moves toward the poles, north and south. And as it moves toward the poles, it cools down and turns back around as like I need to heat back up at the equator. And as a result of this, you have wind.

And this wind pushes on the surface of the water, transfers some of its energy in the form of friction to the water surface and creates waves. And those waves transfer the energy to the shoreline. And when they come in at an angle, that's when you get that coastal current, right? Yeah, like with you've, again, if you've ever been to the beach and you see the tide or the waves coming in

at that angle and you see it moving with the beach, like if you've ever been out playing and like a raft as a little kid. You look up an hour later and your parents are like, half a mile down the beach from where you start. Right. It's a bit of a panicky situation. It is.

And also you're like, what kind of parents do I have that they just let me drift half a mile? Yeah, you know? They're passed out in the sand at that point. Yeah. So that is called when a wave breaks on the beach at that angle, it's going to pull sediment and sand and water down in what's known as a longshore current.

That is, it's directed off parallel, also perpendicular, but the parallel movement is the longshore current. Yeah, it's like when a wave comes in at an angle to the shore, it distributes its energy. Part of it directly onto the shore, part of it parallel to the shore. It distributes its energy. Part of it directly onto the shore, part of it parallel to the shore, that's that long-chord currently, like you said. And one of the things that it does you also said is it takes that sand and other stuff

and deposits it elsewhere further down. And along the way, it creates things like barrier islands and sand bars and all that stuff. And this ever shifting, ever moving, eroding and depositing of sand and sediment. And those little underwater and sometimes above water deposits create other types of currents, specifically a riptide current. Yeah, that's the longshore drift.

And like if you've ever seen like the beach curve back in pretty hard, the water can't make that turn really. It's just going to deposit stuff and sort of drop it off there at the end of that point. It'll build up in what's known as a spit. All those obstructions, all those deposits form obstructions for waves when they're going back out. Once they transfer their energy, they're like, oh, I'm pretty far inland.

I need to get back out the ocean. And so it backs up, beep, beep, right? And as it does, it encounters these underwater barriers that it itself have deposited. It's kind of a big, ironic moment. And so it can't get back out to see as fast as it wants because it's running in these obstructions. And when there's like a break in the obstruction, like a sand bar or something like that, a break in the sand bar,

it provides a natural funnel. And that creates a riptide current. Yeah, like, hey, look at that little narrow channel. I'm gonna take all this water that would normally just flow out nice and easy. I'm going to send it through there and I'm going to grab your little kid and take it taken with me. Right. It creates basically suction just like when you open a drain and a bathtub and it starts to drain, it drains pretty quick. Yeah, it's dangerous. Like that's how you drown when you're swimming in the ocean. You hear about strong rip currents and inclement weather.

It's no joke, even really good swimmers can get caught in a rip. Oh, yeah. And it's bad news. Riptide, very bad news. And then there's some other currents that are created that don't just occur at the shore, but they do, they occur in the ocean and at the shore. There's this thing called upwelling. Yeah, like this stuff. And upwelling can happen in a few different ways, but as far as the coast is concerned, when wind comes in and it basically

blows water away from an area, like from the shore. Water likes to try to even itself out. So as some waters blown away from the surface, the stuff that's below it, the deeper water will come up and basically replace it. And that's upwelling. Yeah, it's another, like what strikes me when you look at wind and all these currents, everything is circular almost.

Right, so the lot of spinning going on. Yeah, there's a really distinct relationship between wind and water, it's inseparable, especially when you're talking about global winds and currents together, right? But both of them are broken down to fluid dynamics, and they do form these circles and cycles and clockwise motions and counterclockwise motions depending on where you are in the world.

Yeah, and in the case of upwelling and downwelling, it's not a horizontal spin, but it is a vertical from top to bottom, and then from bottom back up to the top. Yeah, and you want to talk about, um, that was which one? Well, both. It's the same pattern from top to bottom and bottom to top, with upwelling and downwelling. Right, and bottom to top with upwelling and downwelling. Right. And the whole thing about upwelling and downwelling, whether it's at the shore or in the ocean, is that the ocean is kind of, it's not like if you take a slice of ocean at the top and you take a

slice of ocean at the bottom, very different. And you look at them, yeah, under a microscope or test them for whatever, you know, using some sort of spectroscope, maybe some sort of oscillator glaven or something like that. Yeah, or just look at it. Yeah, you're going to find that there's, it's like two different types of water, even though it's from the same part, it's from the same section of ocean, right? Yeah. And the stuff at the top is going to be very oxygen rich. There's going to be a lot of life, phytoplankton, that kind of stuff, but not too many nutrients.

The stuff at the bottom is going to be lousy with CO2. Yeah, cold. Yeah, very cold and a lot of nutrients, right? And when both of these things are needed at different spots, so the upwelling and the downwelling creates this kind of gas exchange and nutrient exchange throughout the ocean. And the oxygen at the top when it's deposited down lower thanks to downwelling, all of that oxygen circulates downward through the ocean and all the fishies that need oxygen

and their gills get to breathe it in, right? Yeah, and with upwelling, like I mentioned earlier, in Antarctica, where it's super cold, and you would not expect marine life to do so well, it is because of the upwelling that brings that nutrients from the bottom up to the top, and that cycle, and that's called life. And one other really neat thing about upwelling and downwelling is the oxygen that's at the top of the ocean. Were it to just sit there for very long and dissolve? We would have a very big problem because all of that life, once it dies, would decay very quickly up top.

Yeah, that's not good. No, it wouldn't because anaerobic bacteria would begin to thrive and we'd have a overabundance of hydrogen sulfide, which would lead to ocean acidification, which would mean the end of the world, basically. Yeah, so that nutrient swap is very important for everybody on the planet. Yep, and there's this elegant solution to the oceans that happens every day,

everywhere in the ocean, thanks to upwelling and downwelling. All right, well, that's a good start, my friend. My eyes are not glazed over, actually. Good. They're sharp. Full of life. We will talk after this break about some more surface currents. Ooh! There's a ton of stuff they don't want you to know. Does the U.S. government really have alien technology?

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All right, Josh, there's more than one kind of surface current. We covered the kind of like that first part, but there's also surface ocean currents. Yeah. And again, the wind is the big contributor to how these babies form. And specifically, I guess we should talk about the Coriolis effect. Yeah, this is a game changer as people who read self-help books on airplanes would call it. Right? Yeah. So again, it all starts with heat and all that heat is found in its thickest part

at the equator. Damn, my brain is broken. So at the equator, it's the hottest, right? That's right, and it's also spinning faster at the equator than at the poles. Right, it is. Okay, so it's- The earth that is.

Yeah. So at the equator, it's hot, it's spinning faster because of the spin, because of the heat, the ocean is actually about 8 centimeters higher here than at the rest of the ocean. Yeah, that's so much higher. So there's a... Right, it's just enough to make water flow away from the equator. Plus, you've got wind that's whipped up because hot air at the equator

starts moving northward and cools down and that creates wind, right? So if the earth didn't rotate, you would still have these things, but wind would travel in a straight line away from the equator toward the poles, cool down and turn around and come back in a straight line. That's right, but that's not the case.

No, it isn't, because the Earth does rotate and it produces the Coriolis effect. Yeah, it's like a curve, basically. It curves to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere. Right, so it makes wind curve. And since wind drives surface currents, it makes surface currents curve as well, right?

That's right. So what's really cool is the ocean has its own topography. Oh yeah. It's definitely not flying by who's looked at an ocean and be like, oh, it's pretty choppy. But if you could step back even further and you had the right kind of topographical glasses on, maybe, you would see that there's like valleys and mountains,

and maybe not mountains, but little tiny hills and valleys in the ocean. So like I said, it has its own topography. And this is created by those winds that push on the water. And as they're pushing the water up and the Coriolis effect is turning it some, water starts to kind of mound. So in some parts of the ocean,

you have water that forms a mound that's about like three to six feet tall. Yeah, it doesn't sound intuitive. No, I don't think. I don't have water mounding up on itself. You think of it as flat. Yeah. But there is actually water that's mounded up into little hills. Yeah. Okay. And so that means that gravity wants to push this water downward, right? But it doesn't just go back down the hill because the Coriolis effect pushes it upward. And the net outcome is that instead the water just says, how about I just go around instead? Yeah.

You stay up here on the mound, you stay down here, but I am going to just go around. And what it does is since a mound is roughly circular, it creates a current that goes around these things, around these mounds, and there's five major ones in the entire world. I know where you're headed. And they form what are called gires.

That's right. G-Y-R-E-S. And they are the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific. And then the Indian Ocean has its very own Gire. Yes. There were smaller ones around in Artyca, but those are the five major Gires. We talked about the Gulf Stream earlier. That is a part of the North Atlantic Gire.

And it carries 4,500 times the water of the entire Mississippi River, the Gulf Stream does. Yeah, the Gulf Stream is the hero of all gires. It is, it moves, let me see, I've gotta find this one because this is so amazing. So the Gulf Stream, at any given point, it moves water

at a rate of 15 superdomes worth per second. So you remember the superdome? In Louisiana. Yes, sure. Say you filled it with water. Okay. And then you took that and copied it 15, 14 more times. So you have 15 superdomes full of water.

That's how much water passes through any given point per Second, okay in the Gulf Stream All right, that's a lot of water. How many big Macs is that? It's trillions of big Macs billions and billions served But the the the Gulf Stream itself is actually It's technically the western boundary current of the North Atlantic Gire. Yeah and it's gonna carry warm water it has a big impact on the world it's gonna carry warm water up north from the Gulf of Mexico and that's why if you're living on the east coast of Florida you're gonna have

cooler summers and warmer winners. Western Europe is gonna be a lot warmer than other places on its exact same latitude. And this is all because of the Gulf Stream. Right. You can deposit bodies in it if you're dexter. Yeah. And those things are gonna, yep, see you later, body. Yeah, it'll probably get carried to England

and they'll be like, blind me, what is this? So that's just the Gulf Stream. There's actually at least four major currents that form the boundary currents of the North Atlantic Gire. And the North Atlantic Gire is just one. We've also talked about Gire's before with the great Pacific garbage patch. Yeah, we covered, did we do waves or did we just do?

We did sir waves. We did rogue waves too, but we covered waves in surfing earlier. Okay, yeah, yeah, I remember that. But these boundary currents are created, again, in part by the winds flowing away from the equator. The Coriolis effect turning the waves and the mounds of water circulating the waves around them. Yeah. So you've got these like just clockwise or counterclockwise depending on which

happens for you are currents that are just massive that move water around. And again, they cycle nutrients. Like you said, they affect the weather because they deposit warm water from the south up to all the way up to England. Apparently, so you know, England is on the same latitude as like some glacial parts of Canada. Yeah, that makes sense. But their winners are like nothing compared to that. Thank you, Ocean.

Same thing as Bermuda is very temperate, it has very nice climate. And it's on the same latitude as North Carolina, which is, you know, it can get kind of cold there. Oh, yeah, sure. That's all thanks to the Gulf Stream. Thank you Gulf Stream. And if you want to thank the Gulf Stream Chuck, you can thank Ben Franklin because he's

someone who named it. Oh, really? Yeah, as the first postmaster general of the United States, he wanted to figure out why mail took so many more weeks longer to get from England to the US than it did from the US to England. Because they're going against traffic. Exactly, but he didn't know that. And he found out and he took some measurements and roughly charted the Gulf Stream back in the 18th century.

Man, he was a smart dude. He really was. That's pretty amazing. I didn't know he dabbled in oceanography. But again, the Gulf Stream, amazing. And it's just one boundary current of one major gyre. Yeah, it's kind of a hypnotic. If you look at these motion maps of global motion maps

of like trade winds and ocean currents. Yeah, I could watch those videos all day. Yeah, it's just stuff spinning around and like traveling around and it's really soothing. And especially when they do like a heat gradient or topographical gradients, it's really colorful too and it's ever shifting. Oh yeah. You can just get a little jewel out of the corner of my mouth when I watch, though. It's about as good as watching Fantasia. There's one other thing we should say about those surface currents is they drag on the water below them,

right? So the wind is transferring its energy to the surface of the water. Yeah, and it drags a little bit less as the deeper you go. Right. Apparently though, the current, the motion of water usually goes in opposition

to the motion of wind. So what you end up having, if you could take a column slice from top to bottom of the ocean, you would find that the water ultimately is making a very long downward spiral. And that's called the Ekman spiral. Yeah, there's a graphic of that that looks pretty neat as well. Pretty neat. Again, there's a graphic of that that looks pretty neat as well. Pretty neat again mesmerizing stuff. Yep. So Chuck,

after this we will talk about the global conveyor belt. That's my favorite part I think. Okay. There's a ton of stuff they don't want you to know. Does the U.S. government really have alien technology? And what about the future of artificial intelligence, AI? What happens when computers learn to think? Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover-ups from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science.

History is riddled with unexplained events. We spent a decade applying critical thinking to some of the most bizarre phenomenon civilization and beyond. Each week, we dive deep into unsolved mysteries, conspiracy theories and actual conspiracies. You've heard about these things, but what's the full story? Listen to stuff they don't want you to know on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts

or wherever you find your favorite shows. What's up fam? I'm Brian Ford, artist and baker and host of the new podcast Flaky Biscuit. On this podcast, I'm gonna get, Artisan Baker, and host of the new podcast, Flaky Biscuit. On this podcast, I'm going to get to know my guests by cooking up their favorite nostalgic meal. It could be anything from Twinkies to mom's Thanksgiving dressing. Sometimes I might get it wrong, sometimes I'll get it right.

I'm so happy it's good because man, if it wasn't, I'd be like, you know, everybody not my mom. Either way, we will have a blast. You'll have access to every recipe so you can cook and bake alongside me. As I talk to artists, musicians, and chefs about how this meal guided them to success. And these nostalgic meals, fam,

they inspire one of a kind conversations. When I bake this recipe, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Oh. Does this podcast come with a therapist? Ha, ha, ha, it can. Listen to Flaky Biscuit every Tuesday on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Listen to the Super Secret Bestie Club as part of the MyPortuda Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, my favorite part of ocean currency. Yeah, ocean currents. It works. The deep ocean current, aka the global conveyor belt, it is fascinating to me. If you're talking about, this is about 90% if the surface currents are about 10% about 90% of the oceans water Is a part of the deep ocean current and we can't see it Because we're up here on earth and we are not deep under the water. It's invisible to us

Right, but it circles the globe at a four sixteen times as strong as all of the world's rivers combined Which is again still not as strong as all of the world's rivers combined. Which is again, still not as much as the Gulf Stream. Still pretty impressive. It's pretty impressive. But slow. So it moves super slow. Water a few centimeters a second.

Whereas the Gulf Stream moves waters at like a couple hundred centimeters a second. Yeah, I think the conveyor belt, they said like one patch will take a thousand years to completely... To completely... Yeah, around, yeah, the circuit. Yeah, and it takes 10 years for a water to make a full circuit on the North Atlantic Gire.

Yeah, so 10 years? Yeah, and then a thousand years. Right, wow. Yeah. So the global conveyor belt, it is driven by density, which I think is pretty interesting. Yeah, because up to this point, it's all been driven by wind, which is ultimately driven by heat. This is also driven by heat in a way, but in a completely different way.

Yeah, heat and salt, thermohalene circulation, thermo being heat, and haline being salt. Warm water holds less salt. So what happens is, like let's say you're in the Antarctic and water freezes to form an iceberg or water evaporates. Either way, salt is not gonna be a part of that equation. No, the salt is left behind as the water freezes. And you know, icebergs aren't salty, they're fresh water. Yeah, so the salt is left behind as the water freezes and you know icebergs are salty,

they're fresh water. Yeah, so the salt is left behind, it's got to go somewhere. It is going to be very dense at that point, so it is going to be cold and dense and sink to the ocean floor. Right. So remember back when we were talking about, right, and we were talking about coastal, coastal currents and upwelling and downwelling. Yeah, this plays a part. When water sinks, other water moves in to replace it. And so what starts off here, and this actually, I think starts around the North Pole, definitely in the North Atlantic, as that water sinks and moves downward, it creates, it starts this current that goes all the way around the world. And again,

takes a thousand years to complete. Yeah, it just kick starts it basically and it's called the conveyor belt I think because it never stops moving and it's super slow. Yeah, I kept getting that. Remember that, whatever that, Bugs Bunny assembly line song? Like, it was always the same like, I can't remember it either. Now remember it either now i have our theme song i'm trying to think about it but there's like any time bugs bunny messed around and a conveyor belt or something that use the same like composition really i'll try to find it alright so uh... once this water hits and artica it the basically the same thing happens all over again the cold water is going to split.

Some of it heads to the Indian Ocean, some heads to the Pacific, and this upwelling and downwelling, this cycle just starts all over again. Yeah, as it moves closer to like the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, it gets closer to the equator, the water starts to warm up. It loses some of its salinity,

it starts to thin out a little bit, and so it rises. And when it does, it takes all those nutrients and all that CO2 up with it. And it's very much like the gas exchange that occurs in the human cardio pulmonary system, right? Yeah, it's not homeostasis, but it almost feels like that. If you took the whole system overall, yeah, it's homeostatic for sure. But it's like that by this exchange, this transfer from one part to another, from the deep ocean

to the surface. Yeah. And this, as it reaches the surface and it depletes its nutrients, it's carried back around. It basically tries to go up, hits Alaska, Russia, Asia, North Asia, Northeast Asia, and turns back around and goes, ends up, finally, back in the North Atlantic, up near the North Pole. And gets cold and starts over again. Right. And by the time it gets there, it's basically nutrient depleted and it sinks and it starts to recharge again.

That's right. And that just like blood in your cardio pulmonary system, it gets depleted, it ends up going past the lungs, it transfers out CO2, it gets in oxygen, this is just the opposite. This is transferring out oxygen and gaining CO2 and nutrients. That's a good way to feel connected to the earth when you start looking at things like that, you know? Yeah. It's not so different.

It's, I mean, we're all connected, man. And again, there's a big nutrient swap meat happening as well with the conveyor belt, like we were talking about, and basically kind of has the same effect as those surface currents do. Yeah. As far as exchanging the oxygen and the CO2 and nutrients and just moving everything where it needs to be. Yeah. I thought this was pretty cool.

In this article, it talks about there's also a density driven, a thermohaline current in Mediterranean. Because Mediterranean is apparently saltier than the Atlantic. And as a result, this gradient, anytime you have a difference in something, whether it's height, temperature, salinity, density, homeostasis is the ultimate goal,

so it's gonna try to go toward the middle from higher to lower. And this is the same thing, so it creates that oceanic current. And apparently in World War II, subs would run silent by going in and out of the Mediterranean without their engines on, just using that current.

Oh, really? Yeah. So they would run silent? Yeah, like a glider. Run deep, run silent, run deep. Exactly. Wow. That's frightening.

All right, are we at title currents? You don't have to be frightened. It was years ago. Yeah, we're at title currents, I think. They still do that, no? There's no submarines anymore. We haven't been at war for years. They retired all the submarines.

Yeah. All right, title currents are generated by the tides. We did talk about, like we said, I think in the rogue waves and surfing about tides and waves. And the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun, but more of the moon because the moon is closer, is what's going to cause that bulge on the sides and it's going to drive the water level at that bulge. Basically, it's going to decrease, it's going to increase where it's aligned with the moon and decrease at the halfway point between those two places.

Right. And so, and it's always changing because the moon, the position of the moon and the sun and the earth are always changing, but they change in a very predictable manner so we can predict when the tides happen., but they change in a very predictable manner so we can predict when the tides happen. But if you just took a snapshot at any given point of the title effect, right? And if you imagine that the moon is on one side, the sun is on one side,

and the earth is on the middle, the world's oceans around the earth stretch out on the sides and because of that gravitational pull. And just imagine that it's always like that. It's always just this elliptical oval shape the world's oceans are. And then the earth, the dry earth, is spinning within that. And so the land masses on the earth are always coming in and out of that bulge. And so they're going from higher to lower tide. It's kind of, it just makes it easier for me,

rather than to think of the oceans moving around the earth to think of the earth spinning within the ocean. And that causes the change in tides. That does something for you? Does it all the way. And these are different than the other currents we've talked about because it's not a continuous stream and they switch directions. That's the high tide and low tide. And it doesn't impact like the ocean current that much. It's shoreline stuff.

Yeah, but it's pretty important. I mean like fish, fishies lay eggs eggs and low tide will pull those eggs out into the open ocean and those fish will hatch. It also brings food in from the ocean into like marshland and that kind of stuff or washes up jellyfish. Yeah. And to delight the children on the beach. Yes, but don't touch them. You can just look.

And when the tide is rising, that flow is directed toward the shore. That's called the flood current. We've heard about that flood in the ebb. And the ebb is when it's directed back out to sea. That's right. And that makes it all very predictable. Like you said, we can go to the beach and listen to the tide report. That's also a very relaxing thing to do. Oh yeah. Oh yeah listen to that like the AM like fishing and charts and title reports. Yeah it's very relaxing for me. I like it. I remember growing up listening to like grain future reports and hog reports that were like that. Pork bellies. Yeah. Pork futures. Yeah features. Just a couple more things. There are plenty of other currents, and there's also plenty of other wind patterns that

drive these currents. They do things like create the El Nino, which basically takes weather, thunderstorms and stuff around the equator, and moves them in different places that we're not used to, which can lead to droughts and floods, depending on where you are. And then also, there's a lot of concern among scientists who know about this kind of stuff that climate change is going to ultimately and negatively affect the global conveyor belt. Yeah. Because as the earth warms up, more and more icebergs are going to melt, creating much less salinity. Yeah.

And since the water will be less saline and warmer, it's going to sink less. And so that global conveyor belt that relies on cold, dense, salty water to sink to get it started is going to slow. And that could be bad because remember, that's the global nutrient exchange. Yeah, that wouldn't be good. No, because then the phytoplankton dies, and again, when the phytoplankton dies, the fishes die, the seals die. Polar bears are upset.

Well, the poor seals die either way. Yeah. That is either way. Yeah. That is very sad. Yeah. You got anything else? No, that's it. That's ocean currents. If you want to know more about ocean currents, you can type those words into the search bar at

howstofworks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for a listener mail. I'm going to call this French speaker. Doesn't like our heavy metal music interludes. There's a few people out there who don't. So here we go. I'm gonna read this just as it came. I like you very much. Sorry for my bad English, but I speak French so it compensates. I have a little problem I feel like I need to tell you. Please don't take it the wrong way. I have had problems to sleep feel like I need to tell you, please don't take it the wrong way.

I have had problems to sleep for a while now, and I found that listening to podcasts helped me a lot. I put my iPod under my pillow while it plays, or I put only one head sound thing in one ear. I love your podcast because it's very interesting, intelligent, and also your voices are nice and you are never yelling. So I do fall asleep every single time. This is a good thing I swear.

Of course it takes me three or four times to listen to all of it. Usually I listen to it in the car. Now my problem, why do you have to put loud heavy metal music for a break? I always wake up in panic when it starts. I do want to continue to listen to you at night. et la musique est très belle. Je suis toujours dans le panique quand on commence. Je me suis dit que je vais continuer à parler à vous à la nuit. Je ne sais pas ce que vous avez deux questions. Si vous ne changez la musique et vous pensez à moi à la fois et à la la laver, ou vous changez-t-il pour quelque chose, je dirais, c'est bon.

Peut-être qu'en exchange, je suis désolé, ex-ange, je peux vous donner un peu de la place dans le franche. Au revoir. Au revoir. Au revoir. I'm sorry, exchange. I could give you pickup lines in French. Or Voir? Or Voir? Or Voir. Daniel. I have to say hats off, Daniel, because I could not write that in French. Oh, well, no, you don't speak French, do you? Oh, I'm Piquito.

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So there is a ton of stuff they don't want you to know. Yeah, like does the US government really have alien technology? Or what about the future of AI? What happens when computers actually learn to think? Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover-ups, from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science, history is riddled with unexplained events. Listen to stuff they don't want you to know

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