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Winds drive ocean currents in the upper 100 meters of the ocean's surface. However, ocean currents also flow thousands of meters below the surface. These deep-ocean currents are driven by differences in the water's density, which is controlled by temperature (thermo) and salinity (haline). This process is known as thermohaline circulation.
For example, the ocean current that brings warm water up the north Atlantic to northwest Europe also cumulatively and slowly blocks ice from forming along the seashores, which would also block ships from entering and exiting inland waterways and seaports, hence ocean currents play a decisive role in influencing the climates of regions through ...
A baroclinic instability is a fluid dynamical instability of fundamental importance in the atmosphere and ocean. It can lead to the formation of transient mesoscale eddies, with a horizontal scale of 10-100 km. [1] [2] In contrast, flows on the largest scale in the ocean are described as ocean currents, the largest scale eddies are mostly created by shearing of two ocean currents and static ...
View of the currents surrounding the gyre. The North Atlantic Gyre of the Atlantic Ocean is one of five great oceanic gyres.It is a circular ocean current, with offshoot eddies and sub-gyres, across the North Atlantic from the Intertropical Convergence Zone (calms or doldrums) to the part south of Iceland, and from the east coasts of North America to the west coasts of Europe and Africa.
A summary of the path of the thermohaline circulation. Blue paths represent deep-water currents, while red paths represent surface currents. Thermohaline circulation. Thermohaline circulation (THC) is a part of the large-scale ocean circulation that is driven by global density gradients created by surface heat and freshwater fluxes.
Water forms the ocean, produces the high density fluid environment and greatly affects the oceanic organisms. Sea water produces buoyancy and provides support for plants and animals. That's the reason why in the ocean organisms can be that huge like the blue whale and macrophytes. And the densities or rigidities of the oceanic organisms are ...
A subsurface ocean current is an oceanic current that runs beneath surface currents. [1] Examples include the Equatorial Undercurrents of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, the California Undercurrent, [ 2 ] and the Agulhas Undercurrent, [ 3 ] the deep thermohaline circulation in the Atlantic, and bottom gravity currents near Antarctica.
In marine systems, ocean currents have a key role determining which areas are effective as habitats, since ocean currents transport the basic nutrients needed to support marine life. [17] Plankton are the life forms that inhabit the ocean that are so small (less than 2 mm) that they cannot effectively propel themselves through the water, but ...