DENISE

Mariners have known for many centuries that the ocean contains currents that flow along
generally consistent paths. The Spanish galleons transporting gold and silver from
Mexico to Spain made use of the Gulf Stream to help them return home, while Benjamin
Franklin used ships' log books to draw a map of this current in 1772. Since then,
scientists have gained much more information on both where currents flow and why.
Why Do Currents Flow?
Surface currents are generated largely by wind. Their patterns are determined by wind
direction, Coriolis forces from the Earths rotation, and the position of landforms that
interact with the currents. Surface wind-driven currents generate upwelling currents in
conjunction with landforms, creating deepwater currents.
Currents may also be generated by density differences in water masses caused by
temperature and salinity variations. These currents move water masses through the deep
oceantaking nutrients, oxygen, and heat with them.
Occasional events also trigger serious currents. Huge storms move water masses.
Underwater earthquakes may trigger devastating tsunamis. Both move masses of water
inland when they reach shallow water and coastlines. Earthquakes may also trigger rapid
downslope movement of water-saturated sediments, creating turbidity currents strong
enough to snap submarine communication cables.
Bottom currents scour and sort sediments, thus affecting what kind of bottom develops
in an areahard or soft, fine grained or coarse. Bottom substrate (material) determines
what kinds of communities may develop in an area.
Finally, when a current that is moving over a broad area is forced into a confined space, it
may become very strong. On the ocean floor, water masses forced through narrow
openings in a ridge system or flowing around a seamount may create currents that are far
greater than in the surrounding wateraffecting the distribution and abundance of
organisms as well as the scientists and their equipment seeking to study them.
Ekman's Theory.
The Ekman spiral, named after Swedish scientist Vagn Walfrid Ekman (1874-1954) who
first theorized it in 1902, is a consequence of the Coriolis effect. When surface water
molecules move by the force of the wind, they, in turn, drag deeper layers of water
molecules below them. Each layer of water molecules is moved by friction from the
shallower layer, and each deeper layer moves more slowly than the layer above it, until
the movement ceases at a depth of about 100 meters (330 feet). Like the surface water,

however, the deeper water is deflected by the Coriolis effectto the right in the Northern
Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere. As a result, each successively
deeper layer of water moves more slowly to the right or left, creating a spiral effect.
Because the deeper layers of water move more slowly than the shallower layers, they
tend to twist around and flow opposite to the surface current.
Patterns of Surface Currents
Environmental scientists study ocean circulation because, along with patterns of air
movement in the atmosphere, the movement of water through the oceans helps determine
weather and climate conditions for different regions of the world. The three main patterns
of ocean circulation are gyres, upwelling, and thermohaline circulation.
VINIA:
Patterns of ocean circulation: Gyres
As the prevailing winds in earths atmosphere blow across the surface of the oceans, the
winds push water in the direction that theyre blowing. As a result, the surface water of
the oceans moves in concert with the air above it.
This dual movement creates large circular patterns, or gyres, in each of the planets
oceans. The ocean gyres move clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and
counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.
Ocean gyre circulation moves cold surface water from the poles to the equator, where the
water is warmed before the gyres send it back toward the poles. The waters temperature
influences the temperature of the air: Cold currents bring cooler air to the coastline as
they move toward the equator, and they bring warmer air to the continents they pass on
their way back toward the poles.
Patterns of ocean circulation: Upwelling
Sometimes the movement of surface currents along a coastline leads to a circulation
process called upwelling. As a result of the Coriolis effect, upwelling commonly occurs
on the west coast of continents, where the surface waters moving toward the equator are
replaced by deeper cold water that moves up to the surface.
The deep water brings with it nutrients from the bottom of the ocean. These nutrients
support the growth of primary producers, which support the entire food web in the ocean.
Regions of the world where deep ocean upwelling occurs are often very productive with
high numbers of many different types of organisms living in them.

Patterns of ocean circulation: Thermohaline circulation

The largest circulation of water on the planet is a direct result of changes in temperature
and salinity. Salinity is the measure of dissolved salt in water. The pattern of ocean
currents related to salinity and temperature is called the thermohaline circulation (thermo
= heat; haline = salt). This figure gives you a general idea of what this pattern looks like.
Sometimes called the thermohaline conveyor belt, this circulation pattern moves cold
water around the globe in deep water currents and warmer water in surface currents. A
single molecule of water being transported by thermohaline circulation may take a
thousand years to move completely throughout the Earths oceans.
The conveyor is driven by changes in the density of water as a result of changes in both
temperature and salinity. Heres how this circulation pattern works:
1. Warm water in a shallow current near the surface moves toward the North Pole
near Iceland. As this water reaches the colder polar region, some of it freezes or
evaporates, leaving behind the salt that was dissolved in it. The resulting water is
colder and has more salt per volume than it did before (and thus is more dense).
2. The cold, dense, salty water sinks deeper into the ocean and moves to the south, as
far as Antarctica. After it makes its way near Antarctica, the cold, deep current
splits, one branch moving up toward India into the Indian Ocean and the other
continuing along Antarctica into the Pacific Ocean.
3. Each branch of the cold, deep current is eventually warmed in the Indian Ocean or
the northern part of the Pacific Ocean. Although the water still contains the same
amount of salt, its a little less dense because its warmer than the cold water
surrounding it; as a result, it moves upward, becoming a surface current.
4. The warm, shallow, less dense surface current moves to the west, across the
Pacific Ocean, and into the Indian Ocean, where it rejoins the Indian Ocean
branch. Both branches then continue into the Atlantic Ocean and head back toward
the North Pole.
KARLA
Role of Water Masses.
All these water masses help to transfer oxygen from the atmosphere into the deep ocean.
The sinking water is very cold and contains high concentrations of dissolved oxygen
acquired at the surface, because cold water can hold more oxygen than warm water.
During their flow, they mix with "older" water that has been away from the surface for a
longer time, thus ensuring that the bottom waters of the ocean are supplied with oxygen.
Additional oxygen is supplied in the southern hemisphere by Antarctic Intermediate
Water, formed in a band near 50 S to 55 S latitude. In this region, water does not freeze

in winter, but it does cool forming a lowsalinity layer that sinks to about 1,000 meters
(0.6 mile) depth and moves north in all three oceans.
Water need not be cooled to change its density. Large density changes also can be
produced in areas where evaporation is more important than precipitation. Examples of
regions where this occurs are the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf.
Although the waters here are warm (in the Persian Gulf temperatures can exceed 30C, or
86F), the density can increase so that water leaving these enclosed basins sinks as it
mixes into its surroundings. Mediterranean Water can be traced across the North Atlantic
because of its high salinity, while Red Sea Water can be followed moving south along the
east coast of Africa to the Agulhas Current.
An idealized version of the current patterns throughout the whole ocean is shown in
Figure 2. This shows clearly that although the surface and deep current patterns may
appear separate, they are actually closely linked. Deep water sinking in the northern
North Atlantic is replaced at the surface by warmer water from nearer the equator.
Similarly, the dense water forming off Antarctica is replaced by upwelling of deep water
derived originally from the North Atlantic. Thus, there is a global thermohaline
circulation that converts surface water in high latitudes into deep water that moves away
from its source, mixing with the water into which it flows.
This flow can be traced from the northern North Atlantic, through the South Atlantic into
the Circumpolar Current, and then back again via upwelling in the Pacific and Indian
Oceans to the surface layers. Water flows from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean through
the Indonesian passages, and the circuit is completed by warm water in the Agulhas
Current south of Africa, which enters the South Atlantic and moves northward, crossing
the equator again and merging into the Gulf Stream. Although this pathway can be traced
in Figure 2, it is clearly much more complicated than stated here. The currents do not
flow continuously, as there are many small gyres where water gets "stuck" on its journey
and is forced to recirculate one or more times before it can continue around the globe.

Similarly, there is considerable variation in the paths traced out by the different currents.
While the general path of a particular current is the same from one year to another, the
actual path it takes can vary widely on scales of a few weeks. All the western boundary
currents show considerable movement about their mean position. Quite why these occur
is not really known, but they may be driven by changes in the wind stress upstream, or
the shedding of eddies