Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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.
A Wind generated current is a flow in a body of water that is generated by wind friction on its surface. Wind can generate surface currents on water bodies of any size. The depth and strength of the current depend on the wind strength and duration, and on friction and viscosity losses, [1] but are limited to about 400 m depth by the mechanism, and to lesser depths where the water is shallower. [2]
Surface oceanic currents are driven by wind currents, the large scale prevailing winds drive major persistent ocean currents, and seasonal or occasional winds drive currents of similar persistence to the winds that drive them, [6] and the Coriolis effect plays a major role in their development. [7]
In oceanography, a gyre (/ ˈ dʒ aɪ ər /) is any large system of ocean surface currents moving in a circular fashion driven by wind movements. Gyres are caused by the Coriolis effect; planetary vorticity, horizontal friction and vertical friction determine the circulatory patterns from the wind stress curl ().
Much of the heat transfer in the Atlantic occurs due to the Gulf Stream, a surface current that carries warm water northward from the Caribbean. While the Gulf Stream as a whole is driven by winds alone, its northern-most segment, the North Atlantic Current, obtains much of its heat from thermohaline exchange in the AMOC. [3]
As a part of the global conveyor belt – a constantly moving system of deep-ocean circulation driven by temperature and salinity – it also carries nutrients necessary to sustain ocean life ...
Secondly indirectly, since enhanced surface wind strengthens the wind-driven subtropical gyre. Since the subtropical gyres drive a northwards heat transport via the western boundary currents, the sea surface temperatures warm up along the paths of the currents and cause more evaporation by providing more energy and enlarging the air–sea ...
The atmospheric circulation can be viewed as a heat engine driven by the Sun's energy and whose energy sink, ultimately, is the blackness of space. The work produced by that engine causes the motion of the masses of air, and in that process it redistributes the energy absorbed by the Earth's surface near the tropics to the latitudes nearer the ...