Ocean Circulation By: Samantha Hampton In Partnership With: Dr. Zafer Top

Ocean Circulation Ocean circulation is a continuous, directed movement of seawater generated by the forces acting upon this mean flow, such as breaking waves, wind, Coriolis effect, cabbeling, temperature and salinity differences, with 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 Circulation Importance Ocean Circulation is important because the ocean contains gases like methane, and carbon dioxide, which are greenhouse gases. With global and ocean climate change becoming a main topic in todays economy, the information on what the oceans do and where and when is very important to understand and predict direction of climate increasing or decreasing.

Thermohaline C:\Users\rowps5\Documents\Thermohaline.web.pdf The “thermohaline” circulation of the ocean refers to the flow of ocean water caused by changes in density. This can occur as the ocean is warmed or cooled at the surface by radiation and contact with the atmosphere, or by the addition of fresh water (rain, snow, and river runoff) or salt (from formation of sea ice).sea ice

Conveyor Belt The ocean conveyor gets its “start” in the Norwegian Sea, where warm water from the Gulf Stream heats the atmosphere in the cold northern latitudes. This loss of heat to the atmosphere makes the water cooler and denser, causing it to sink to the bottom of the ocean. As more warm water is transported north, the cooler water sinks and moves south to make room for the incoming warm water. This cold bottom water flows south of the equator all the way down to Antarctica. Eventually, the cold bottom waters returm to the surface through mixing and wind-driven upwelling, continuing the conveyor belt that encircles the globe.

Conclusion In conclusion ocean circulation effects our everyday lives very greatly. It can change our earths climate and the weather. This is a huge deal today in the economy because the increase in pollution has caused the air to get hotter causing the polar ice caps to melt leaving us with close to no fresh water sources. Ocean Circulation also effects the lives of fish, which we eat so if they die off then we don’t have that for food.

Data Between the southern tip of Greenland and the coast of Labrador illustrating the recent ventilation of the deep North Atlantic by the main components of North Ahttp://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/conveyor.htmltlantic Deep Water.

Resources Dr. Zafer Top

THANK YOU Huge shout out to Dr. Zafer Top for helping me gather the data for this presentation! I have learned so much from him through this presentation. Thank you for watching!