The Causes and Roles of Ocean Currents

Ocean currents are continuous movements of seawater that can transport cool or warm water, as well as Carbon Dioxide. When tectonic plates move they can open and close oceanic gateways that link to major ocean basins, controlling the global circulation of ocean currents, which can cause a shift in the transportation of heat and salt from the equator to polar regions.

7. ^ Tom Garrison. "Oceanography: An Invitation to Marine Science" 5th edition. Thomson, 2005. Page 4.

The Bay’s salinity varies widely from season to season and from year to year, depending on the amount of fresh water flowing from its rivers. The Bay tends to be fresher in spring, when snow melts and heavy rainstorms frequently fall. During the drier months, the Bay is usually saltier. Salinity also increases with depth. Fresh water remains at the surface because it is less dense than salt water. The water on the Bay’s eastern shore tends to be saltier than the water on the western side. This is due to two factors; most fresh water enters the Bay from its northern and western tributaries, and The Coriolis Force, a phenomenon caused by the earth’s rotation, pushes flowing water in the Northern Hemisphere to the right, causing saltier water to move up the Bay veers toward the eastern shore.

the right of the direction of the wind in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in

The Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the five oceans in the world. It is home to many fish and other creatures. It is one of the five oceans that actually intrigue me. My questions were, How big is the ocean itself, what life lives here, and the trade routes of this ocean.

4) The salinity of the position mid-ocean surface water changes with latitude due to its position regarding the equator and high precipitation produces these changes.

In this episode of the BBC documentary series, “The Blue Planet: Open Ocean,” we were able to explore the abundance and complications of the open ocean, the pelagic zone. Over 60% of our planet is covered by the ocean, yet the deep sea is largely still unknown. We know more about the moon than what we know about the deep ocean. The temperature and the level of sunlight decrease as the depth increases. The ocean may appear uniform from the surface, but there is several layers to the ocean. The pelagic zone contains the most area of the open ocean. The zone includes everything except for the coastal waters and the sea floor. However, even within this area, there are variation since some part is lifeless with very little amount of organisms and

Wind powered surface currents and waves, along with moon and sun powered tides, greatly impact Earth’s coastlines. As warm or cold water ocean currents affect coastal climates, waves release energy, shifting sand and sediments, eroding and replenishing coastline shores; all while tides raise and lower sea level. Florida’s east coast, encompassed by barrier islands, is affected by subtropical ocean waters provided by the Gulf Stream, facilitating warm and humid climates, as well as hurricanes. As these warm ocean waters interact with Florida’s barrier islands, through wave action and tides, its coastline continuously transforms.

From around the 14th to 19th centuries, the Atlantic Ocean served as the great highway and allowed people and goods to move freely between Europe, America and even Africa. These interactions and exchanges transformed European, American and African societies and eventually led to the creation of a new culture, people, ideas and economies throughout the Atlantic area. The Atlantic world provides a comprehensive and logical history regarding one of the most important cross-cultural encounters of the human history (Glenn, 2002). The European main drive was to expand and create creative ways where people that are living along the Atlantic borders were able to adapt and exist side by side, they sustained continuous growth to grow their empires, economies as well as trade in the Atlantic world. Thus generally there were connections, interactions as well as massive exchanges that zigzagged the Atlantic Ocean in the beginning of the

For many years now, scientists have believed that our climate is changing. This climate change has caused water currents up north, near Antarctica to shift leading to warm waters taking the place of the usual cold arctic waters. Warm water melts the glaciers and causes the top of the glaciers to float off into the sea, allowing the warm water to melt even more glaciers. The extra glacier melting into our sea has caused the sea levels to raise and the

ocean is made up of different layers of varying densities and chemical compositions. During the

As well as being an area where nutrients are recycled and released into the water, the Polar Front region in the North Atlantic plays a fundamental role in the driving of ocean currents. At the front near the Greenland, Iceland and Norwegian (GIN) seas and the Labrador Sea, warm salty water from the North Atlantic is cooled by Arctic waters and by intense heat loss to the atmosphere; it becomes denser and sinks to deeper layers of the ocean. Salt rejected as sea ice forms also increases the density and contributes to the process. Although a slow process, this sinking takes place over a wide area and each winter several million cubic kilometers of water sink and begin moving slowly south along the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. It is known as thermohaline circulation because it is driven in part by temperature and partly by salinity differences.

6. What causes ocean tides? Tides are caused by the gravitational pull of both the moon and the sun. The moon being closer has a greater effect on tides. Water on the side of Earth closest to the moon bulges toward the moon. There is also a bulge away from the moon on the opposite side of the Earth.

Some sea ice melts and refreezes during the summer, warming, months and the winter, cooling, months as part of its natural process.

The high concentration of salt solution in the ocean cause its freezing point from 0℃ decrease to -2℃. As a result, the ambient temperature must reach a lower point in order to freeze the ocean than to freeze freshwater lakes. This freezing point depression effect is the same reason and principle we