Ocean Currents

• Current is a continuous and directional

movement of water. 
• It profoundly affect the Earth's climate.
• Ocean currents have been described as
rivers in the sea.
• There are two types of currents
a) Surface currents
b) Deep-sea currents
Gulf Stream
In the mid-1700s, Benjamin Franklin
noticed that mail ships took 2 weeks longer to
sail from England to North America than
merchant ships. Later on, he learned that the
merchant ships discovered a current flowing
northward along the east coast of North
America and then across the Atlantic to
England that helped them save time by
avoiding the current.
In 1796, Franklin and his cousin and
merchant captain, Timothy Folger, charted and
named it the Gulf Stream.
Surface currents
• Driven primarily by friction between the wind blowing over the sea
surface and surface water. 
• Flow in the upper 400 meters of the seas and involve 10% of the
world's ocean.
• When the wind blows across the water in a constant direction for a
long time, it drags surface water along with it, forming currents.
Surface currents
• The orange arrows are called gyres or the
elliptical surface currents.
• North Atlantic gyres circulate in clockwise
direction, and the southern gyres circulate
counterclockwise direction.
• Its circular motion tends to trap and
accumulate floating debris, like human
garbage which accumulate in the center of
oceans.
Surface currents
• Th gyre-produced concentrations of garbage consists mostly of
plastics which break down into smaller and smaller pieces called
microplastic debris.
• It is mixed and moved about by wave and wind energy and disperses
over huge surface areas throughout the upper part of the ocean hile
also mixing with ocean water below the surface.
Surface currents
• Coriolis effect is a force that deflects the
gyres away from the prevailing winds. It is
named after Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis, a
French scientist who described it.
• It is caused as the Earth rotates on its axis, the
circulating air is deflected toward the right in
the Northern Hemisphere and toward the left
in the Southern Hemisphere.
• At the sea surface, both the prevailing winds
and the Coriolis effect affect current
directions
Deep-sea currents
• In 1951, Rachael Carson wrote a book, The Sea around Us, about the
ocean depths are “a place where change comes slowly, if at all.”
• Deep-sea currents are driven by differences in water density. It is
formed when the dense water sinks and flows horizontally along the
seafloor.
• Water is most dense when it is cold. Therefore, as tropical surface
water moves poleward and cools, it becomes denser and sinks.
Deep-sea currents
• Two factors that cause water to become dense
and sink:
a) Decreasing temperature
b) Increasing salinity
• The global deep-sea circulation caused by these
two factors is called thermohaline circulation

Thermo means temperature

and haline means salinity
Upwelling
• Upwelling is the upward flow of water. If water sinks in some places,
it must rise in others to maintain mass balance.
• It carries cold water from depths to surface and nutrients from deep
ocean, creating rich fisheries along the coasts of California and Peru.
• The frictional drag of a prevailing offshore wind can pull surface water
away from a coast. The deep water upwells along the edge of the
continental shelf to replace the surface water flowing away from the
shore.
• Equatorial upwelling is equatorial surface water moves toward each
pole diverges it causes deeper and colder water to rise and replace
surface water.