Ocean Current Sungwoo & Irving Grade 8G. What is Climate? Climate is the average weather usually taken over a 30-year time period for a particular region.

Ocean Current

Sungwoo & Irving

Grade 8G

What is Climate?

Climate is the average weather usually taken over a 30-year time period for a particular region and time period.

Climate is not the same as weather, but rather, it is the average pattern of weather for a particular region. Weather describes the short-term state of the atmosphere.

Factors That Affects Climates

Altitude

Direction of Wind (Pattern)

Ocean Currents

Elevation

Latitude

Temperature

How does the ocean affect climate?

The ocean plays a major role in the Earth’s climate and weather. It pulls the sun’s energy along certain paths. For example, the climate on the West Coast of America (where California is) is usually pretty mild, since the winds are warmed up by the Pacific Ocean.

The Ocean is able to absorb and store heat that it gets from the sun. The water from the ocean can also affect the temperature of the atmosphere and its circulation all over the world.

Upper 10 feet (3 meters) of the ocean hold the same amount of heat as is in the entire atmosphere. Water from the ocean is also the source of most of the water in the rain cycle.

Ocean Current and Precipitation

Ocean Currents affect not only the temperature of an area, but also the amount of precipitation received. Cold ocean currents flowing along a coastal region chill the air and sometimes prevent warm air and the moisture it holds from falling to earth.

The Atacama desert in South America and the Namib desert in Africa, for example, were formed partly because of cold ocean currents nearby.

Gulf Stream

Gulf stream is a water current in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Stream is 2000 feet (610m) deep and 40 miles (64km) wide and moves about 5 miles per hour.

For example, Norway. The Gulf stream’s effect and the strong westerly winds (driven by the warm water of the gulf stream) on Europe occurs along the Norwegian coast.

Thermo Haline Large-scale pattern under sea mainly controlling the surface ocean.

Thermo Haline Heat + Salt.

Moves around the world Moves slowly, 10cm a sec at max Moves 100 times the volume of the amazon river.

The water moves mainly because of differences in relatively density. Water that is more dense sinks below water that less dense. 2 things, Temperature and salinity.

Cold water is denser than warm water. Water gets colder when at higher latitude. Water gets warmer when it is heated by incoming solar energy. (lower latitude.

Saltier water is denser than less salty water. Water gets saltier if rate of evaporation is high. Water gets less salty if there is an influx of freshwater either from melting ice or precipitation and runoff from land.

Summary

Climate Change leading to increases in ocean temperatures, evaporation of seawater, and glacial and sea ice melting could create an influx of warm freshwater onto the ocean surface. This would further block the formation of sea ice and disrupt the sinking of denser cold, salty water. These events could slow or even stop the ocean conveyor belt, which would result in global climate changes that could include drastic decreases in Europe’s temperatures due to a disruption of the Gulf System.

Bibliographyhttp://www.ecn.ac.uk/what-we-do/education/tutorials-weather-climate/climate/factors-affecting-climate

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/media/ocean-currents-and-climate/?ar_a=1

http://www.weatherwizkids.com/weather-climate.htm

http://kids.discovery.com/tell-me/curiosity-corner/earth/in-the-ocean/how-does-the-ocean-affect-climate

http://www.ask.com/question/how-do-ocean-currents-influence-climate

http://www.gdrc.org/oceans/fsheet-01.html

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_oceans_affect_climate

Bibliography 2

http://earth.usc.edu/~stott/Catalina/Oceans.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_8mw-1HYFg

http://climap.net/thermohaline-circulation