1. OCEAN CURRENTS and CIRCULATION REFERENCES5 Surface Ocean Currents,
Coriolis Effect
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/currents/05currents1.html
2.Trade Winds
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/currents/05currents2.html
3.Winds Drive Ocean Currents
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/currents/05currents3.html
4.Ekman Spiral
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/currents/05currents4.html
5.OCEAN CURRENTS: TED TALK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4pWafuvdrY
6.THE CLOBAL CONVEYOR BELT
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_currents/05conveyor2.html
7.OCEAN CURRENTS AND CLIMATE
https://earth.usc.edu/~stott/Catalina/Oceans.html
8.SLOWING OCEAN CURRENTS:
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07052018/atlantic-ocean-circulation-slowing-climate-change-heat-temperature-rainfall-fish-why-you-should-care
9.Historical warning climate change
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/23/11/13.html
10.SUMMARY: THERMOHALINE CIRCULATION
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.
Credit: Illustration by Wiley, Composition Services Graphics
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 Earth’s oceans.
The conveyor is driven by changes in the density of water as a result of changes in both temperature and salinity. Here’s how this circulation pattern works:
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).
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.
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, it’s a little less dense because it’s warmer than the cold water surrounding it; as a result, it moves upward, becoming a surface current.
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.