How Do Deep Currents Affect The Oceans

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How Do Deep Currents Affect The Oceans?

Ocean currents act much like a conveyor belt transporting warm water and precipitation from the equator toward the poles and cold water from the poles back to the tropics. Thus ocean currents regulate global climate helping to counteract the uneven distribution of solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface.

What are the effects of deep ocean currents?

The movement of this heat through local and global ocean currents affects the regulation of local weather conditions and temperature extremes stabilization of global climate patterns cycling of gases and delivery of nutrients and larva to marine ecosystems.

How do deep ocean currents affect marine life?

Currents are important in marine ecosystems because they redistribute water heat nutrients and oxygen about the ocean. At the same time currents inevitably sweep over and carry off living organisms.

What two things affect the deep currents in the ocean?

Deep currents form in parts of the ocean where water density increases. The density of the ocean is affected by temperature and salinity. Currents Differences in water density cause variations in the movement of deep currents.

Why are deep ocean currents important?

Deep water currents return nutrients to the surface by a process known as upwelling. Upwelling brings nutrients back into sunlight where plankton can use the nutrients to provide energy that drives an ocean’s ecosystem.

How do ocean currents affect rainfall?

When currents move around land masses clashing air temperatures can lead to the formation of clouds fog and cause precipitation. … This water vapor increases the temperature and humidity of the air leading to precipitation and storms. In fact nearly all rain originates from the ocean.

How do ocean currents affect ocean food chains?

Under normal conditions winds and currents cause mixing that eventually brings nutrients back up to the sunlit surface waters. If this did not happen the phytoplankton eventually would completely run out of nutrients which would affect the entire ocean food chain.

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How do ocean currents affect the global climate Brainly?

Ocean currents act much like a conveyor belt transporting warm water and precipitation from the equator toward the poles and cold water from the poles back to the tropics. Thus ocean currents regulate global climate helping to counteract the uneven distribution of solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface.

How do waves affect marine life?

Waves also work in combination with tides and currents to carry nutrients to marine animals along the shorelines. By pushing water onto the shore waves make it possible for intertidal animals to live in areas of beaches and shorelines that would otherwise be too dry to sustain them.

What do the deep currents do?

These currents bring heat from the tropics to the polar regions the Gulf Stream for instance brings warm water along the eastern coast of the US up to Northern Europe. Deep currents also known as thermohaline circulation result from differences in water density.

What are deep-ocean currents What drives them?

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. … This initiates the deep-ocean currents driving the global conveyer belt.

What are the four factors that affect ocean currents?

There are four factors affecting the origin and flow of Ocean Currents i.e. Rotation and gravitational force of the Earth Oceanic factors (temperature salinity density pressure gradient and melting of ice) atmospheric factors (atmospheric pressure winds rainfall evaporation and insolation) factors that …

How does density affect ocean water?

Differences in water density affect vertical ocean currents (movement of surface ocean water to the bottom of the ocean and movement of deep ocean water to the surface). … Denser water tends to sink while less dense water tends to rise.

How do surface currents affect climate?

The surface ocean currents have a strong effect on Earth’s climate. This heat is transported by ocean currents. … In this way the ocean currents help regulate Earth’s climate by facilitating the transfer of heat from warm tropical areas to colder areas near the poles.

Why does deep water have more nutrients?

Also when surface waters are cold it is easier for deeper water to rise to the surface bringing nutrients to sunlit areas where phytoplankton can use them. … Because the vertical layers of the ocean arenâ€™t mixing nutrients that have built up in deep waters canâ€™t reach the surface.

How do ocean currents affect the climate of coastal regions?

Warm and cold ocean currents can affect the climate of coastal regions but only when local winds blow in from the sea. Warm currents heat the air over the ocean and bring higher temperatures over land. Cold currents can lower air temperatures and can bring colder temperatures over land.

How do ocean currents affect climate quizlet?

A warm ocean current that flows toward the poles results in warm air masses that move over land that the current flows past. This causes the climate of that land area to be warmer than it would be otherwise. A cold ocean current that flows toward the equator results in cold air masses affecting the nearby land.

How do some deep ocean currents form?

Deep ocean currents (also known as Thermohaline Circulation) are caused by: … The sinking and transport of large masses of cool water gives rise to the thermohaline circulation which is driven by density gradients due to variations in temperature and salinity. The earth’s rotation also influences deep ocean currents.

How do organisms deep in the ocean get their nutrients?

Underwater footage shows mineral-laden water spewing from hydrothermal vents which nourishes deep-sea ecosystems as well as life near the surface. The nutrients from vents circulate through the oceans over thousands of years and contribute to phytoplankton blooms.

How do ocean currents affect migration?

Ocean gyres are primarily driven by strong winds blowing over the surface of the sea. … At the same time the migration of these ocean currents may be moving the position of the subtropical fronts—the boundaries between the colder polar oceans and the warmer waters adjacent to them.

How does currents affect the food availability?

“When the Atlantic Conveyer current works the dead plankton sink to the bottom and are replaced at the surface with nutrient-rich water that encourages further production ” Schmittner said. “When the current is disrupted and the mixing slows that production also is disrupted.”

How the ocean affects climate?

The oceans influence climate by absorbing solar radiation and releasing heat needed to drive the atmospheric circulation by releasing aerosols that influence cloud cover by emitting most of the water that falls on land as rain by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it for years to millions of …

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What causes ocean currents?

Ocean currents are driven by wind water density differences and tides. Oceanic currents describe the movement of water from one location to another.

How do ocean currents influence climate provide at least three examples?

Ocean currents influence climate because the currents are major redistributors of heat and energy throughout the globe. Warm currents such as the Gulf Stream cause regions that would normally be cold to be warmer. For example New York is warm for its latitude. … Cold currents also increase the aridity of an area.

What causes ocean swells?

As wind blows across the water’s surface friction occurs and energy is transferred from wind to water. The result is a rising crest that forms into a wave. Over time and distance sustained wind strength and duration build up a large amount of energy beneath the ocean’s surface forming deeper waves known as swells.

What happens when an ocean wave gets close to the shore?

Waves at the Shoreline: As a wave approaches the shore it slows down from drag on the bottom when water depth is less than half the wavelength (L/2). The waves get closer together and taller. … Eventually the bottom of the wave slows drastically and the wave topples over as a breaker.

Does Tide affect marine life?

Tides affect marine ecosystems by influencing the kinds of plants and animals that thrive in what is known as the intertidal zone—the area between high and low tide. … Sand crabs not only burrow to survive they actually follow the tides to maintain just the right depth in the wet sand.

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Where does water enter the deep ocean circulation?

Surface currents move water into the space vacated at the surface where the dense water sank. Water also sinks into the deep ocean off of Antarctica.

How do convection currents affect the ocean?

Convection drives the Gulf Stream and other currents that turn over and mix up the waters in the world’s oceans. Cold polar water is drawn down from higher latitudes and sinks to the ocean bottom pulled down toward the equator as lighter warmer water rises to the ocean’s surface.

Where are deep ocean currents?

Deep ocean currents

In cold regions such as the North Atlantic Ocean ocean water loses heat to the atmosphere and becomes cold and dense. When ocean water freezes forming sea ice salt is left behind causing surrounding seawater to become saltier and denser. Dense-cold-salty water sinks to the ocean bottom.

What causes deep ocean currents quizlet?

What causes deep water currents to move? It is caused by temperature and salinity of the water. It is from the surface to 200m deep. It is caused by wind action Earth’s spin and the shape of the continents.

How do deep ocean currents form quizlet?

Deep currents occur deep in the ocean and are influenced by water density salinity and temperature. The Antarctic Bottom Water is an example. … Winds and currents flow faster at the equator than at the poles. One reason equatorial currents are faster is that they are warmer.

How do deep water currents move?

Deep water currents move slowly and predictably across the globe in a cyclical system often called the “Global Conveyor Belt.” … Cold dense water at the poles becomes warm and less dense at the equator and then it becomes cold and dense again as it reaches the opposite pole.

Does revolution of Earth affect ocean currents?

Our planet’s rotation produces a force on all bodies moving relative to theEarth. Due to Earth’s approximately spherical shape this force is greatest at the poles and least at the Equator. The force called the “Coriolis effect ” causes the direction of winds and ocean currents to be deflected.