Ocean current
Continuous, directed movement of sea water generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences.
- Ocean current500 related topics
Earth
Third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life.
More solar energy is received by tropical regions than polar regions and is redistributed by atmospheric and ocean circulation.
Upwelling
Oceanographic phenomenon that involves wind-driven motion of dense, cooler, and usually nutrient-rich water from deep water towards the ocean surface.
Upwellings that are driven by coastal currents or diverging open ocean have the greatest impact on nutrient-enriched waters and global fishery yields.
Climate
Long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years.
Other ocean currents redistribute heat between land and water on a more regional scale.
Plankton
Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in water (or air) that are unable to propel themselves against a current (or wind).
Sverdrup
Non-SI metric unit of flow, with 1 Sv equal to 1 e6m3/s; it is equivalent to the SI derived unit cubic hectometer per second (symbol: hm3/s or hm3⋅s−1).
It is used almost exclusively in oceanography to measure the volumetric rate of transport of ocean currents.
Ocean gyre
In oceanography, a gyre is any large system of circulating ocean currents, particularly those involved with large wind movements.
Boundary current
Boundary currents are ocean currents with dynamics determined by the presence of a coastline, and fall into two distinct categories: western boundary currents and eastern boundary currents.
Season
Division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region.
Seasonal weather fluctuations (changes) also depend on factors such as proximity to oceans or other large bodies of water, currents in those oceans, El Niño/ENSO and other oceanic cycles, and prevailing winds.
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.
Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension the North Atlantic Drift, is a warm and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida and up the eastern coastline of the United States the veers east near 36 latitude (North Carolina) and moves toward Northwest Europe as the North Atlantic Current.