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Ocean water is constantly moving, and not only in the form of waves and tides. Ocean currents flow like vast rivers, sweeping along predictable paths. Some ocean currents flow at the surface; others flow deep within water. Some currents flow for short distances; others cross entire ocean basins and even circle the globe.
By moving heat from the equator toward the poles, ocean currents play an important role in controlling the climate. Ocean currents are also critically important to sea life. They carry nutrients and food to organisms that live permanently attached in one place, and carry reproductive cells and ocean life to new places.
Rivers flow because of gravity. What makes ocean currents flow?
Tides contribute to coastal currents that travel short distances. Major surface ocean currents in the open ocean, however, are set in motion by the wind, which drags on the surface of the water as it blows. The water starts flowing in the same direction as the wind.
But currents do not simply track the wind. Other things, including the shape of the coastline and the seafloor, and most importantly the rotation of the Earth, influence the path of surface currents.
In the Northern Hemisphere, for example, predictable winds called trade winds blow from east to west just above the equator. The winds pull surface water with them, creating currents. As these currents flow westward, the Coriolis effect—a force that results from the rotation of the Earth—deflects them. The currents then bend to the right, heading north. At about 30 degrees north latitude, a different set of winds, the westerlies, push the currents back to the east, producing a closed clockwise loop.
The same thing happens below the equator, in the Southern Hemisphere, except that here the Coriolis effect bends surface currents to the left, producing a counter-clockwise loop.
Large rotating currents that start near the equator are called subtropical gyres. There are five main gyres: the North and South Pacific Subtropical Gyres, the North and South Atlantic Subtropical Gyres, and the Indian Ocean Subtropical Gyre.
These surface currents play an important role in moderating climate by transferring heat from the equator towards the poles. Subtropical gyres are also responsible for concentrating plastic trash in certain areas of the ocean.
In contrast to wind-driven surface currents, deep-ocean currents are caused by differences in water density. The process that creates deep currents is called thermohaline circulation—“thermo” referring to temperature and “haline” to saltiness.
It all starts with surface currents carrying warm water north from the equator. The water cools as it moves into higher northern latitudes, and the more it cools, the denser it becomes.
In the North Atlantic Ocean, near Iceland, the water becomes so cold that sea ice starts to form. The salt naturally present in seawater does not become part of the ice, however. It is left behind in the ocean water that lies just under the ice, making that water extra salty and dense. The denser water sinks, and as it does, more ocean water moves in to fill the space it once occupied. This water also cools and sinks, keeping a deep current in motion.
This is the start of what scientists call the “global conveyor belt,” a system of connected deep and surface currents that moves water around the globe. These currents circulate around the globe in a thousand-year cycle.
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