News tagged with ocean currents
Mammoth iceberg could alter ocean circulation: study
An iceberg the size of Luxembourg knocked loose from the Antarctic continent earlier this month could disrupt the ocean currents driving weather patterns around the globe, researchers said Thursday.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 25, 2010 |
3.9 / 5 (26) |
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Massive Southern Ocean current discovered
(PhysOrg.com) -- A deep ocean current with a volume equivalent to 40 Amazon Rivers has been discovered by Japanese and Australian scientists near the Kerguelen plateau, in the Indian Ocean sector of the Southern ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Apr 26, 2010 |
4.8 / 5 (19) |
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Sea Salt Holds Clues to Climate Change
(PhysOrg.com) -- We know that average sea levels have risen over the past century, and that global warming is to blame. But what is climate change doing to the saltiness, or salinity, of our oceans?
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
May 01, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (20) |
3
NASA Study Finds Atlantic 'Conveyor Belt' Not Slowing
(PhysOrg.com) -- New NASA measurements of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, part of the global ocean conveyor belt that helps regulate climate around the North Atlantic, show no significant ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Mar 26, 2010 |
4.6 / 5 (18) |
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Turning the tide to energy
NASA researchers who developed a new way to power robotic underwater vehicles believe a spin-off technology could help convert ocean energy into electrical energy on a much larger scale. The researchers hope ...
Mar 06, 2009 |
3.3 / 5 (23) |
6
Disappearing act of world's second largest fish explained
Researchers have discovered where basking sharks - the world's second largest fish - hide out for half of every year, according to a report published today in Current Biology. The discovery revises scient ...
May 07, 2009 |
4.9 / 5 (15) |
0
Missing sunspots: Solar mystery solved
The Sun has been in the news a lot lately because it's beginning to send out more flares and solar storms. Its recent turmoil is particularly newsworthy because the Sun was very quiet for an unusually long ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Mar 02, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (14) |
20
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Gulf of Mexico oil spill in the Loop Current
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists monitoring the US oil spill with ESA's Envisat radar satellite say that it has entered the Loop Current, a powerful conveyor belt that flows clockwise around the Gulf of Mexico ...
May 19, 2010 |
4.9 / 5 (13) |
12
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Australian scientists find Timor Sea meteorite crater
Australian scientists have discovered a crater deep beneath the Timor Sea made during a heavy meteor storm which may have altered the Earth's climate, the lead researcher said Thursday.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
May 20, 2010 |
4.3 / 5 (13) |
7
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Study finds warm ocean currents cause majority of ice loss from Antarctica
Reporting this week in the journal Nature, an international team of scientists led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has established that warm ocean currents are the dominant cause of recent ice loss from A ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Apr 25, 2012 |
4.5 / 5 (12) |
13
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Two huge icebergs let loose off Antarctica's coast
(AP) -- An iceberg about the size of Luxembourg that struck a glacier off Antarctica and dislodged another massive block of ice could lower the levels of oxygen in the world's oceans, Australian and French ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 26, 2010 |
4.6 / 5 (11) |
1
Crocodiles ride ocean currents to travel the high seas
University of Queensland ecologists have unlocked the mystery of how salt-water crocodiles cross large stretches of the sea despite being poor swimmers - they like to surf.
Jun 04, 2010 |
4.8 / 5 (10) |
0
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Fukushima nuke pollution in sea 'was world's worst'
France's nuclear monitor said on Thursday that the amount of caesium 137 that leaked into the Pacific from the Fukushima disaster was the greatest single nuclear contamination of the sea ever seen.
Oct 27, 2011 |
4.6 / 5 (10) |
17
Humans 'damaging the oceans': research
Mounting evidence that human activity is changing the world's oceans in profound and damaging ways is outlined in a new scientific discussion paper released today.
Jul 29, 2009 |
4.2 / 5 (10) |
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Earth's climate change 20,000 years ago reversed the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean
An international team of investigators under the leadership of two researchers from the UAB demonstrates the response of the Atlantic Ocean circulation to climate change in the past. Global warming today could have similar ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 03, 2010 |
4.2 / 5 (10) |
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Ocean current
An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of ocean water generated by the forces acting upon the water, such as the Earth's rotation, wind, temperature, salinity differences and tides caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun. Depth contours, shoreline configurations and interaction with other currents influence a current's direction and strength.
Ocean currents can flow for thousands of kilometers, and together they create the great flow of the global conveyor belt which plays a dominant part in determining the climate of many of the Earth’s regions. Perhaps the most striking example is the Gulf Stream, which makes northwest Europe much more temperate than any other region at the same latitude. Another example is the Hawaiian Islands, where the climate is cooler (sub-tropical) than the tropical latitudes in which they are located, because of the effect of the California Current.
For more information about Ocean current, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
