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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]
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.
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.
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 ...
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 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.
A crucial system of ocean currents may already be on course to collapse with devastating implications for sea ... The AMOC’s collapse could also cause sea levels to surge by around 1 meter (3.3 ...
A system of ocean currents that transports heat northward across the North Atlantic could collapse by mid-century, according to a new study, and scientists have said before that such a collapse ...