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Ocean currents are important in the study of marine debris. [15] [16] Plankton are dispersed by ocean currents. Upwellings and cold ocean water currents flowing from polar and sub-polar regions bring in nutrients that support plankton growth, which are crucial prey items for several key species in marine ecosystems. [17]
Those currents comprise half of the global thermohaline circulation that includes the flow of major ocean currents, the other half being the Southern Ocean overturning circulation. [2] The AMOC is composed of a northward flow of warm, more saline water in the Atlantic's upper layers and a southward, return flow of cold, salty, deep water.
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.
A vital system of Atlantic Ocean currents that influences weather across the world could collapse as soon as the late 2030s, scientists have suggested in a new study — a planetary-scale disaster ...
A geostrophic current may also be thought of as a rotating shallow water wave with a frequency of zero. The principle of geostrophy or geostrophic balance is useful to oceanographers because it allows them to infer ocean currents from measurements of the sea surface height (by combined satellite altimetry and gravimetry ) or from vertical ...
The currents carry heat and nutrients to different areas of the globe and play a vital role in keeping the climate of large parts of the Northern Hemisphere relatively mild.
An entirely different class of subsurface current is caused by friction with surface currents and objects. When the wind or some other surface force compels surface currents into motion, some of this is translated into subsurface motion. The Ekman Spiral, named after Vagn Walfrid Ekman, is the standard for this transfer of energy. The Ekman ...
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.