How water currents effect the climate?

Answer 1

Surface currents affect the climate by the force of the wind and water temperatures and that's what affects the climate.

If you want to get into the details:

The world's ocean is crucial to heating the planet. While land areas and the atmosphere absorb some sunlight, the majority of the sun's radiation is absorbed by the ocean. Particularly in the tropical waters around the equator, the ocean acts a as massive, heat-retaining solar panel. Earth's atmosphere also plays a part in this process, helping to retain heat that would otherwise quickly radiate into space after sunset. The ocean doesn't just store solar radiation; it also helps to distribute heat around the globe. When water molecules are heated, they exchange freely with the air in a process called evaporation. Ocean water is constantly evaporating, increasing the temperature and humidity of the surrounding air to form rain and storms that are then carried by trade winds, often vast distances. In fact, almost all rain that falls on land starts off in the ocean. The tropics are particularly rainy because heat absorption, and thus ocean evaporation, is highest in this area. Outside of Earth's equatorial areas, weather patterns are driven largely by ocean currents. Currents are movements of ocean water in a continuous flow, created largely by surface winds but also partly by temperature and salinity gradients, Earth's rotation, and tides (the gravitational effects of the sun and moon). Major current systems typically flow clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere, in circular patterns that often trace the coastlines. Ocean currents act much like a conveyer belt, transporting warm water and precipitation from the equator toward the poles and cold water from the poles back to the tropics. Thus, currents regulate global climate, helping to counteract the uneven distribution of solar radiation reaching Earth's surface. Without currents, regional temperatures would be more extreme-super hot at the equator and frigid toward the poles-and much less of Earth's land would be habitable.

Answer 2

what are surface currents?

This is another person improving, but to the person who answered this question why did u even answer it if u didnt even know what they are.

Another person. surface currents are the top to about 2 feet down of the oceans water. The surface currents move the warm and cold water and when its cold, because cold air/water is more dense, the pressure lowers and when the pressure lowers it rains and clouds form because of condensation and evaporation.

Answer 3

There are different types how water currents can effect the climate, local and only for a short time, but they also can effect the climate over decades on a whole continent.

1. Local climate caused by currentsThere are currents which cause aridity like the humboldt or the benguela current they are cold and because of that there is very less evaporation and a stabil atmospheric layer constellation (there is no convection), the atacama and the namib are results of this effect. But there are currents like the Golf stream which heat places, the golf stream causes a warm and humid Europe.

2. El Nino/ENSO:In the south pacific there is the cold benguela current which causes aridity, but in some years el nino comes and there is a current in the different direction cold water is replaced by warm water, strong rainfalls are result of this

Something similar is working in the north Atlantic the Golf stream can effect the NAO the northatlantic oscillation.

reasons for those effects may be the thermohaline circulation and difficult atmosphere ocean relations

3. PDO/AMDPacific decadal oscillation and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation at the moment these things are only indices, reasons for decadal variebilities like those ones are not well known, reasons for them are estimated in the global thermohaline circulation

Answer 4

Surface currents, which affect water to a depth of several hundred meters, are driven mainly by winds.

Answer 5

True

true.

Answer 6

yes