Major ocean currents and how they affect global temperatures

Hi everyone,

This week we're talking about ocean currents. Ocean currents are part of the ocean's circulation system and influence local and global weather patterns. They are produced by gravity, differences in water density, winds on the ocean surface and Earth's rotation on its own axis. They cause the movements and exchanges of different ocean properties such as salinity, temperature and nutrients. Ocean currents can flow at speeds of up to 4m per second however most flow at speeds between 5cm and 50cm per second. Weather patterns and ocean currents constantly influence one another. Ocean currents follow similar paths as global wind do, transferring heat from the equator to polar regions. They create and influence ecosystems worldwide, especially marine ones. However they also spread plastics and microplastics around the world far from their original source. This system of ocean currents is often referred to as a global conveyor belt. Today we're going to look at six major ocean currents.

Gulf Stream

The Gulf Stream is caused by movement of water in the Gulf of Mexico. It flows from the Caribbean up the eastern coast of the USA, before crossing the Atlantic and flowing towards the western coast of Europe. It is a warm surface current, meaning that it transports warm water to northeastern USA and into the Atlantic. As it reaches higher latitudes, it cools and the water sinks before flowing back towards the tropics. This current regulates the temperature in the North Atlantic region and causes milder winters in Western Europe.

Gulf Stream

California Current

This current flows from the arctic, down the west coast of the USA and towards the equator. Arctic waters are known to be very rich in nutrients, so this cold, nutrient-rich current flows southwards and has a significant effect on local ecosystems. It is vital for many sea creatures especially marine mammals such as dolphins and whales.

California Current

Kuroshio Current

The Kuroshio Current is caused by movements in western Pacific waters as the sun heats the ocean. This warm water flows up the east coast of Japan. It regulates the temperature in the North Pacific region and leads to milder winters in Japan and some other East Asian countries. It also serves as a migration route for many species.

Kuroshio Current

Agulhas Current

This current flows southwards down the East coast of Africa. It impacts the temperatures across the Indian Ocean Region and transports warmer water towards South Africa. This leads to higher temperatures in southeastern Africa. This current is also an important migration route.

Antarctic Circumpolar Current

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is a cold surface current around Antarctica. It also transports cold water to the tropics. This current regulates the temperature of the Southern Ocean region and the coastal areas of Antarctica.

Antarctic Circumpolar Current

Thermohaline Circulation

The Thermohaline Circulation is a global deep current. It's caused by differences in water density. Transporting warm water to the poles and cold water to the tropics, it affects surface temperatures worldwide and distributes heat and nutrients.

Thermohaline Circulation

We hope you enjoyed learning about different ocean currents and how they affect global temperatures. We'll be back next week!

Your Green World Blog Team💚

Sources:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/10/231017123428.htm

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/10/231009191640.htm

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/10/231013114900.htm

https://www.britannica.com/science/ocean-current

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/ocean-currents/

https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/ocean-coasts/ocean-currents

https://oceaninfo.com/list/ocean-currents/

Images:

Gulf Stream: Georges Clerc-Rampal, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

California Current: Cormorant24, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Kuroshio Current: Frank Geerlings, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Antarctic Circumpolar Current: NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Thermohaline Circulation: Brisbane, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Comments

December Top Tips | 10 ways to re-purpose a plastic bottle

Welcome to December! We thought it would be cool to find 10 ways you can use a plastic bottle even after you have refilled it gazillion times, so you don't waste all the plastic . Because, even if you try to avoid plastic bottles at all costs, you will inevitably end up using hundreds of them throughout your life. The impact on the environment is undisputed, from the land animals to the creatures of our seas, plastic bottles can have a detrimental impact. But we can reuse them in lots of fun ways, here are our ten favourites. Have a good December and a great new year, you'll hear from us! 1. Bird Feeder At one of our blog meet-ups, we actually made a bird feeder out of an old plastic bottle, so this is definitely one we can vouch for. It's super simple, as long as you have some good scissors to cut the bottle and a suitable place to hang it. Below is a photograph of ours for some inspiration, and there are plenty of resources online to ...

The environmental impact of the paper industry - is paper really the solution?

Hello everyone, First of all: Merry Christmas or Hannukah! I hope you are all enjoying your holidays and this special time of year. Today we'll be looking into the paper industry because lots of people are arguing about whether paper bags are better than plastic ones. We looked into it for you, enjoy! Acid rain In the production of pulp and paper, nitrogen oxides (NO X ) and sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) are produced. Both of these are contributors to acid rain, which is not quite as terrible as it sounds but still quite bad. Acid rain is rain, fog, snow or hail that is acidic. It's formed by NO X & SO 2 reacting with water and oxygen which will turn them into nitrous acid (HNO 2 ), nitric acid (HNO 3 ) & sulfuric acid (H 2 SO 4 ), meaning that instead of rain being formed from just water, it is instead also mixed with acid. While acid rain won't harm you, it can harm aquatic ecosystems and forests. When the rain falls on water, it w...

Rachel Carson 1907-1964

Hi everybody, Today I am going to tell you about a really inspirational environmentalist. Her name is Rachel Carson. I hope her story inspires you to be more careful about pesticides. As a girl, Rachel adored writing stories about animals. She got a degree in zoology but had to go home to care for her ageing mother. She wrote a series of radio shows about fish for a living. Rachel's program, called 'Romance Under Waters', was a big hit. Her ways of writing were different to anyone else and no one had made that sound so interesting before. It proved that she was talented in not only science but also writing. She wrote two books called 'The Sea Around Us' and 'The Edge Of The Sea'. When Rachel moved to the countryside, she realized the impact of pesticides. At that time farmers sprayed chemicals on their fields a lot to protect them from animals that may want to eat them. Rachel worked out that they were killing pla...

Turning waste into valuables

Hi, So this post was requested on Twitter after our September Top Tips about recycling . Today we will be talking about how to turn complete waste into something reasonably valuable. This is basically a form of upcycling but to a more extreme level. 1. Ecobricks So, almost a year ago we did a post about ecobricks , but they are such a good example of turning waste into valuables that we decided to put it here anyway. Ecobricks are a building material made from plastic. The waste plastic is washed and then compacted into a clean plastic bottle (also waste). The bottle becomes very hard and durable. Multiple bottles can then be used as bricks and cemented together. The 'bricks' are strong and do not decompose. For more info, read our post where we go into more detail. 2. Metals Although this may seem like something not worth the time. When you separate the metals in waste (for example an old car), you can get usable metal out ...

2021: How Our Year Went, Favourite Posts and Some Goals For 2022 | a wrap up

Hi Everyone! Today we wanted to share some thoughts on how our blogging year went in 2021 and some goals for 2022. We are now at the end of January, which is very scary, but we hope you will still enjoy this slightly belated wrap-up. In 2021, we published 36 posts in total. This is pretty good, we posted on average roughly every 10 days. However, there was a lot of time when we didn't post at all and our posts became increasingly just the monthly fact file. Many of you enjoyed the fact file, and for the most part, we enjoyed writing it but it became a bit of a chore by the end, hence the change we have made over to top tips. We think it would be nice to change our monthly post every year, and we will of course involve you in that just as we did this year. Our best posting months were by far August and September, which is understandable because we were on holiday for August and could schedule a lot of posts for September! Something we want to wor...

Ecosia

We all need to do something to save our planet: it is no use just leaving it to Greta Thunberg! She is very inspirational, yes, but she can only do so much. She isn't superhuman! The climate crisis is up to us; up to you. We all have to get stuck in. Research, learn, discover and most importantly: never give up! The world's animals need us. The world's trees need us and a simple way to do this is to switch to Ecosia. Ecosia is a search engine but it plants trees while you search the web. Okay, it doesn't have as many websites as google so you may want to have google as a backup but it plants trees: this is your opportunity to make a simple change. Just google Ecosia and search to plant trees. Make a difference. Image: This image is owned by Binyamin Mellish on pexels.com .

10 Animals on the Edge of Extinction No. 10- The Javan Rhino

The Javan rhino is listed as the 1st animal on WWF’s list of the 10 world’s most endangered animals, and I for my part, had never heard of it! If you hadn’t either, we’re changing that now. A bit about the rhino’s lifestyle The Javan rhinos are now exclusively found on the island of Java in Indonesia, but were once found in vast regions of northeast india and Southeast Asia. They have a dark grey colour which looks almost black when wet, and their (often pink) skin folds look a bit like plated armor. Both males and females have lower incisors which resemble tusks that they use to fight. Males have one relatively short horn of about 25 cm (10 inches). Javan Rhinos live in tropical forests, marshy areas and in the thick bush. They are mainly browsers and eat over 100 plants species they find in the forest, weigh between 900 and 2300 kg (1984-5071 pounds) and are between 3 and 3.2 meters (10- 10.5 feet) long. How endangered are we talking? Javan rhinos are the most ...

Announcement: Factfile

This image is owned by a blog editor.

April Top Tips: ten tips for environmentally friendly travel

Hi Everyone! We haven't been very present on the blog again recently but we are back today with ten top tips for environmentally friendly travel. Most forms of travel over long distances (unless you are willing to put in a lot of physical effort) use fossil fuels and are generally not good for our planet. So today we will be giving you a few tips which although won't mean that your travel is 100% planet friendly, will be a good start to doing as much as you can. Your Green World Blog Team💚 1. Use trains and boats rather than planes where possible Planes are awful for the environment. They are, however, extremely practical and so easy to use, cheap...It's hard to avoid them! They are so quick too so you don't have to spend as much time travelling. However, they are really bad for the environment. For example, you could fly once to Edinburgh from Heathrow for the same carbon dioxide levels as driving to Edinburgh 336 times! 2. Fly...

Pollination

Hello everyone, Today we're talking about pollination and its importance in the world's ecosystems. First a bit of basic plant biology. To reproduce most plants do have a differentiation into male and female, but not in the same way that we see in mammals. Both male and female reproductive organs can be found on the same plant, although not in the same place. Male gametes are produced in the stamens and are then found in pollen. On the other hand, female reproductive organs are called pistils and egg cells are found in the ovule (normally in the flower heads). Pollination describes the process of transporting the pollen to the egg cells, making it an essential part of the reproduction of plants. Nearly all seed plants worldwide require pollination to reproduce. Cone bearing trees also need pollination. Pollination is almost always assisted by other organisms such as insects, birds and mammals to transport the pollen. In some species wind ...

Green World

Search This Blog