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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 ...
It's good to know how currents are formed in the ocean, as they can be quite dangerous!
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.
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.
Marine currents can carry large amounts of water, largely driven by the tides, which are a consequence of the gravitational effects of the planetary motion of the Earth, the Moon and the Sun. Augmented flow velocities can be found where the underwater topography in straits between islands and the mainland or in shallows around headlands plays a major role in enhancing the flow velocities ...
An example of a geostrophic flow in the Northern Hemisphere. A northern-hemisphere gyre in geostrophic balance; paler water is less dense than dark water, but more dense than air; the outwards pressure gradient is balanced by the 90 degrees-right-of-flow coriolis force The structure will eventually dissipate due to friction and mixing of water properties.
Thermohaline forcing refers to density-gradient driven motions, whereby density is determined by the temperature (‘thermo’) and salt concentration (‘haline’) of the water. Heat and freshwater fluxes at the ocean's surface play therefore a key role in forming ocean currents. Those currents exert a major effect on regional and global climate.
On a global scale, wind and the rotation of the earth greatly influence the flow of ocean currents. [1] In a stream or river there the current is influenced by gravity, the term upstream (or upriver) refers to the direction towards the source of the stream (or river), i.e. against the direction of flow.