Resting at the Yalta beach, swimming in the Black Sea water, it is difficult to imagine that the particles of the water once bathed the coast of Greenland or Antarctica.But there is nothing impossible, because the oceans (with all its bays and seas) is a unified whole.The location is quite fast, sometimes slow, the flow of the oceans connect the most remote corners of it.
Meeting happened to them long ago.The Spaniard Ponce de Leon (in 1513) out to sea to find a "happy island".The ship landed in Florida jet flow, which was so strong that sailboats could not cope with it.In the flow of the North Equatorial Current, Columbus sailed to America.Returning home, he said that "the water move with the sky to the west."American merchants, sailors learned of the existence of the Gulf Stream in the 18th century.
currents of the oceans, or rather their speed and direction, is first determined by the drift of the ships huddled off course.Wrecks, wrecked, also helped to determine their direction.Random objects floating in the sea, it was not enough, so the sailors began to throw overboard the sealed bottle, which put in a postcard.The finder of "trophy" pointed out the place where he found the bottle, and straightened the card by mail.These messages are called "bottle-mail."Later, the bottles were replaced by waterproof plastic envelopes.
major role in the formation of surface currents play the wind.North Equatorial Stream (in the Atlantic), driving water into the Caribbean Sea, from where it flows through the Straits of Florida and gives rise to the Gulf Stream.In the Pacific, the Kuroshio originates.
warm Gulf Stream reaches of European banks and poured into the Arctic Ocean and the Barents Sea, from which returns have cold Greenland Current.On the way to the Gulf Stream loses part of the water.This water forms a circular flow in the North Atlantic.
not always be taken literally word "warm" or "cold" for.These names receive flows that violate the latitudinal distribution of temperature in the ocean when the water is warmer or colder than the surrounding water.
a long time believed that the powerful currents of the oceans, such as the Gulf Stream and the Kuroshio Current, flowing like a river in the ocean.They actually differ from the surrounding water salinity, temperature and color, but they are not observed continuous flow.The Gulf Stream, for example, is divided into separate streams, some of which are deflected to the side and then completely separated from the main flow.
Not so long ago learned about the existence of a whole system of bottom currents.They are formed as a result of lowering the bottom of the world ocean shelf waters of the Antarctic.Thus the transportation is carried out sediment and create a kind of one-way flows, like waves in the coastal zone.
currents of the oceans - the conveyors of heat and cold, fish larvae, plankton and way of moving cyclones.Very interesting frontal zone in the ocean.Mixing of water of different temperatures is fairly rapidly.
Currents play an important role in the life of the ocean.They affect the distribution of fish, weather and climate.
Today British scientists compiled the most accurate map of the currents of the oceans.It became the basis for the observations of the satellite GOCE.This card is designed to help climatologists to develop computer models of the situation on the planet.
