The strongest current in the world's oceans. Earth structure
As a rule, their movement occurs in a strictly defined direction and can have a large extent. The current map below displays them in full.
Water flows are of considerable size: they can reach tens or even hundreds of kilometers in width, and have greater depth(hundreds of meters). The speed of ocean and sea currents varies - on average, it is 1-3 thousand m/hour. But there are also so-called high-speed ones. Their speed can reach 9,000 m/hour.
It is responsible for the mildness of the European winter against the harsh winter weather in North America. Numerous sailors have used it for centuries on their voyages from the Americas, and a large number of species depend on it during their life cycles. Paleoclithological studies show that sudden glaciation usually occurs after global warming. These glaciations may have occurred as a result of the destruction of the Gulf Stream. Numerous experts believe that the link between current global warming and a new ice age will be through the cessation of the Gulf Stream.
Where do currents come from?
The causes of water currents can be a sharp change in water temperature due to heating, or, conversely, cooling. They are also affected by different densities, for example, in a place where several currents (sea and ocean) collide, precipitation, evaporation. But basically, cold and warm currents arise due to the action of winds. Therefore, the direction of the largest oceanic water flows depends mainly on the air currents of the planet.
And they note that this scenario will become a reality in the very near future. All they ask is when it will happen. Global warming is causing the melting of the Arctic Circle, rising North American and Asian rivers, and increased precipitation in the Arctic, leading to increased fresh water, which pours into the oceans, changing its salinity and density. This change will cause the Gulf Stream to stop. The interruption of this beneficial circulation, according to these forecasts, will occur throughout the century, with dramatic consequences.
Currents formed by winds
An example of constantly blowing winds is the trade winds. They begin their life from 30 latitudes. The currents created by these air masses are called trade winds. There are the Southern Trade Wind and Northern Trade Wind Currents. In the temperate zone, such water flows are formed under the influence of They form one of the largest currents on the planet. In the northern one there are two water flow circulations: cyclonic and anticyclonic. Their formation is influenced by the inertial force of the Earth. 
Without the thermal effects of the Gulf Stream, Europe will reach temperatures similar to those in Siberia, which will mean shortages of water and food resources, so life as we know it will change dramatically. Even in some regions of the planet, like in the French Jura, it does not appear. The trend toward the end of the Ice Age continues. It gets its name from Lake Bølling in Denmark, which is the first place to experience the global warming trend that will mean the end of glaciation.
It begins about 600 years ago and lasts about 000 years ago, with some variations of several hundred years depending on regions. The Old Dryas period is a return to icy cold. It is noted primarily in Northern Europe and Asia, so it does not appear in all regions of the world. Dating this Old Dryas is problematic because it is very likely that it did not last more than 200 years. It is therefore a pulsation of periods of hot-cold-warm very quickly.
Types of currents
Mixed, neutral, cold and warm currents are types of circulating masses on the planet. When the flow water temperature is below the temperature surrounding water- this is If, on the contrary, - this is its warm variety. Neutral currents do not differ from the temperature of surrounding waters. And mixed ones can change throughout their entire length. It is worth noting that there is no constant temperature indicator for currents. This figure is very relative. It is determined by comparing the surrounding water masses.
The central phase of the old Dryas can be considered to run from 100 years ago to 250 years ago, although the period may extend to approximately 700 years. During the ancient Drida, the advance of glaciers is checked and at the same time, in the region of the perigelar zone, the tundra descends towards more southern zones and the extension of the tundra and the permafrost line increases. Ice accumulation in huge glaciers that were covered with Baltic Sea, throughout the frozen period, to the north, caused a decline in mean sea level, which left the Mancha Channel, allowing the unification British Isles and the mainland.
In tropical latitudes, warm currents circulate along the eastern edges of the continents. Cold ones - along the western ones. In temperate latitudes, warm currents pass along the western shores, and cold currents along the eastern shores. The variety can be determined by another factor. So, there is an easier rule: cold currents go towards the equator, and warm currents - from it.
In the Mancha Channel they developed forests and abundant fauna, whose remains can still be found underwater. Following Old Dryas's cold, a phase of global warming occurred, peaking in the North Atlantic at current temperatures similar to those of today, albeit in a much wetter climate. At this time, it has already been confirmed that the Gulf Stream and thermohaline circulation are fully operational. The period begins about 1000 years ago and lasts until 800 years ago. Therefore, it only lasts about 200 years. The prevailing heat is causing large amounts of ice to melt, sea levels are rising, and North America has a large glacial lake called Agassiz.
Meaning
It’s worth talking about it in more detail. Cold and warm currents play an important role on planet Earth. The significance of circulating water masses is that due to their movement, solar heat is redistributed on the planet. Warm currents increase the air temperature of nearby areas, while cold currents lower it. Formed on water, water flows have a serious impact on the mainland. In areas where warm currents constantly pass, the climate is humid, where there are cold currents, on the contrary, it is dry. Ocean currents also contribute to the migration of oceanic ichthyofauna. Under their influence, plankton moves, and fish migrate after them. 
Lake Agassiz has become extremely widespread, from east to west from North America. The Recent Dryas is the last episode to the cold of the Würm Ice Age. This is the most famous pulse of the last glaciation. The most interesting thing about the Recent Dryas is the excellent speed with which it returns to fully glacial conditions from a climate very close to the current one, especially if we consider high latitudes northern Europe. This transit is believed to have occurred approximately 10 years later. Periglacial conditions persist in the lower parts, but there will be great progress in the higher glaciers.
We can give examples of warm and cold currents. Let's start with the first variety. The largest water flows are: Gulf Stream, Norwegian, North Atlantic, Northern and Southern Trade Winds, Brazilian, Kuroshio, Madagascar and others. The coldest ocean currents: Somali, Labrador, California.
Another characteristic of the recent Dryas is the expansion of the tundra to the south, an increase in snow in mountain ranges around the world and an increase in atmospheric dust from deserts in Asia, due to greater drought in regions of the inland continents. It is not clear that the Recent Dryas was a period of global cooling, since it is only safely set in Western Europe and Greenland. Other parts of the world experience cooling, less dramatic and much slower, over hundreds of years. In the southern hemisphere it is doubtful that this occurred.
Apparently, the main cause of the Recent Dryas was the suppression of the Gulf Stream and thermohaline circulation. This explains why it had a greater incidence in places where the climate was sweetened by tropical waters that carried currents Persian Gulf. The cause of this suppression of the Gulf Stream appears to have been a sudden influx of fresh and cold water from Lake Agassiz and a thaw in North America. The end of Dryas recently was as sudden and unexpected as its appearance.
Major currents
The most close-up of the planet- Gulf Stream. This is a meridional circulating flow that carries 75 million tons of water every second. The width of the Gulf Stream is from 70 to 90 km. Thanks to him, Europe receives a comfortable mild climate. It follows from this that cold and warm currents largely affect the life of all living organisms on the planet.
Within 40 or 50 years the Gulf Stream was restored, the thermohaline circulation was restored, and finally the post-glacial Holocene in which we live was given birth. The small problem with all this is that the southern hemisphere began a progressive cooling a thousand years before the Recent Dryas, which is not explained by these mechanisms since it appears to have followed independent mechanisms. The final consolidation of the end of the recent Dryas coincides with the earliest Neolithic culture.
This climate change is often associated with more favorable conditions in mid-latitudes and drier conditions in tropical latitudes, which would have been most populated during the Ice Age, with the discovery Agriculture and livestock. In the Atlantic, with a very weak thermohaline circulation, the Gulf Stream did not reach high latitudes, and surface movement occurred south of the polar water masses that reached the coast of southern Portugal. In paleoclimatology, the Heinrich Events are known as a series of events or episodes that occurred during the last glaciation of Wisconsin, in which waves of icebergs broke glaciers and crossed North Atlantic.
Of the zonal, cold watercourses, the flow of the Western winds is of greatest importance. In the southern hemisphere, off the coast of Antarctica, there are no island or continental clusters. A large area of the planet is completely filled with water. The Indian and Quiet streams converge here into one stream and unite into a separate huge body of water. Some scientists recognize its existence and call it Southern. It is here that the largest flow of water is formed - the current of the Western Winds. Every second it carries a flow of water that is three times larger than the Gulf Stream. 
Icebergs carried massive rocks eroded by glaciers, and when they melted in the open sea, they fell to the bottom as "drifted ice debris." Scientists drilling into marine sediments can identify six distinct events in sediment cores recovered from the seafloor. Melting icebergs have added to the North Atlantic great amount fresh water. Such cold, fresh water may have altered ocean density patterns that drive thermohaline circulation, and often coincide with other indicators of global climate variations.
Canary Current: warm or cold?
Currents can change their temperature. For example, the flow starts from cold masses. Then it warms up and becomes warm. One of the options for such a circulating water mass is the Canary Current. It originates in the northeast Atlantic Ocean. It is directed by a cold stream along Europe. Walking along west coast Africa is getting warm. This current has long been used by sailors to travel.
Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the causes of Henry's events. Much of the attention has focused on the activity of the Laurentino Ice Sheet, but others believe that the unstable West Antarctic Ice Sheet may have played a trigger role.
During Heinrich's events, the latitudinal temperature gradient increased between the tropics and the middle and high latitudes, causing changes in atmospheric moisture transport, affecting not only the climate of the Atlantic but also the Pacific. When the Heinrich events ended, salinization of the North Atlantic waters occurred again, which was key to the resumption of the thermohaline circulation. It so happened that after the icebergs were dumped, the mass of ice on the glacial tongues that were depleted on the coast decreased in many places. The supply of fresh water to the sea decreased and consequently the North Atlantic became salinity again.
Sea currents. Sea currents are translational movements of masses of water in the seas and oceans, caused by: - the action of friction between water and air; or - pressure gradients arising in water; or - tidal forces of the Moon and the Sun. Sea currents differ: in origin, in the nature of variability, in location and in physical and chemical properties.
Then the circulation of the ocean conveyor quickly resumed, and the Gulf Stream intensified. Temperatures soaring in mid-high latitudes and interstate warmth. Another one possible reason The salinization of North Atlantic waters that occurred with the Heinrich event may have come from a modification of the atmospheric circulation when the height of the Laurentino mantle was reduced following the collapse of the ice. The Laurentino Ice Glacier was a layer of massive ice that covered hundreds of thousands of square kilometers several times during the Quaternary Ice Ages, spanning most Canada and most of the northern United States.
Together with the concept of Warm and Cold Sea Currents, we are looking for definitions of these words: Terborch - (Terborch) Gerard (1617-8..1) - Dutch painter. Genre compositions from the life of wealthy townspeople (“A Glass of Lemonade,” ca. 1665) are distinguished by calm contemplation, sophistication of silvery color, and masterly rendering of the texture of things. Terem - (from the Greek teremnon - dwelling) - in Dr. Rus''s upper residential tier is rich in mansions and chambers; There were also separate towers (above the gate, on a high basement). Teresina - (Teresina) - a city in the northeast of Brazil, the administrative center of the state. Piaui. 556 thousand inhabitants (1990). international Airport. Food, textile industry. University. Philological Academy. Historical Museum. Teptsov - Oleg Pavlovich (b. 1954) - Russian film director, screenwriter. He made his debut in 1984. His diploma work, “The Master Former” (1988), brought him success. He also directed the feature film "The Initiated" (1989), as well as documentaries""Red... Tera... - (from the Greek teras - monster) - a prefix for the formation of names of multiple units, equal in size to 1012 original units; designated T. Example: 1 TN (teranyuton) = 1012 N. Terapiano - Yuri Konstantinovich (1892-1980) - Russian poet, literary critic. From the beginning 20s in exile (Constantinople, Paris). Religious and philosophical motives in lyrics (collections "Insomnia", 1935; "To the Wind", 1938; "Earthly Wandering", 1951;... Teresa - (Teresa) ( mother Teresa) (in the world Agnes Gonja Bojaxhiu) (b. 1910), founder (1950, India) and abbess of the Catholic Order of Charity. In various countries she founded schools, medical centers, shelters for the poor. Nobel Prize... Teratology - ( from the Greek teras - genus teratos - freak and ...ology), the science that studies deformities and malformations in plants, animals and humans. Terai - a strip of swampy foothill plains at the southern foot of the Himalayas, in India and Nepal. Height up to 900 m. Wet rainforests(jungle) with tall grass. Partially drained and plowed. Teratology - (from the Greek teras - genus teratos - freak and...logy), the science that studies deformities and malformations in plants, animals and humans.
At its final apogee it covered much of northern North America in a period that lasted from 000 years to a thousand years before the present era. At times its southern margin included the places where the cities of New York and Chicago are now found, and then followed fairly closely the current course of the Missouri River on the northern slopes of the Cypress Mountains. Besides them, it merged with the Cordillera Ice Sheet. The ice sheet extended south to about 38 degrees in the center of the continent. During the cold period before the Heinrich event, the height and volume reaching the Laurentino mantle were responsible for the increase in very cold and northern winds, which reached the Atlantic, heading through the valley separating Laurentino's own mantle from Greenland. which today is the sea of Baffin and Labrador.
World ocean currents
Ocean, or sea, currents are the forward movement of water masses in the oceans and seas, caused by various forces. Although the most significant cause of currents is wind, they can also form due to unequal salinity of individual parts of the ocean or sea, differences in water levels, and uneven heating of different areas of water areas. In the depths of the ocean there are eddies created by bottom irregularities; their size often reaches 100-300 km in diameter, they capture layers of water hundreds of meters thick.
These icy Arctic winds increasingly cooled the surface ocean waters of the northwest Atlantic. Then, after the event, a decrease in the height of the Laurentino mantle caused a return to conditions more similar to the present, that is, the westerly winds are not as cold. The higher evaporative effect of these westerly winds helped salinize the surface waters of the North Atlantic, compact them, and more or less intensely reset the thermohaline currents and hence the warm Gulf Stream.
The influence of thermal fluctuations during glaciation reached tropical regions, at least in the Atlantic. Even for some authors, the origin of global variability was in the tropics. According to this theory, during warm tropical periods there would be greater evaporation and greater atmospheric export of moisture from the Atlantic to Pacific Ocean, carried by air masses that cross Central America from east to west. This would lead to an increase in Atlantic salinity and therefore a strengthening of the thermohaline circulation and the Gulf Stream, which would heat the entire North Atlantic, including Greenland.
If the factors causing currents are constant, then a constant current is formed, and if they are episodic in nature, then a short-term, random current is formed. According to the predominant direction, currents are divided into meridional, carrying their waters to the north or south, and zonal, spreading latitudinally - approx. from geoglobus.ru. Currents in which the water temperature is higher than the average temperature for the same latitudes are called warm, lower ones are called cold, and currents that have the same temperature as the surrounding waters are called neutral.
Monsoon currents change direction from season to season, depending on how the offshore monsoon winds blow. Countercurrents move towards neighboring, more powerful and extended currents in the ocean.
The direction of currents in the World Ocean is influenced by the deflecting force caused by the rotation of the Earth - the Coriolis force. In the Northern Hemisphere, it deflects currents to the right, and in the Southern Hemisphere, to the left. The speed of currents on average does not exceed 10 m/s, and their depth extends to no more than 300 m. In the World Ocean, there are constantly thousands of large and small currents that circle the continents and merge into five giant rings. The system of currents in the World Ocean is called circulation and is associated primarily with the general circulation of the atmosphere. Ocean currents redistribute solar heat absorbed by masses of water. They transport warm water, heated by the sun's rays at the equator, to high latitudes, and cold water from the polar regions flows to the south thanks to currents. Warm currents contribute to an increase in air temperature, and cold currents, on the contrary, reduce it. Territories washed by warm currents are characterized by warm and humid climate, and those near which cold currents pass are cold and dry.
The most powerful current in the World Ocean is the cold Western Wind Current, also called the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (from the Latin cirkum - around - approx. from geoglobus.ru). The reason for its formation is strong and stable westerly winds blowing from west to east over vast areas of the Southern Hemisphere from temperate latitudes to the coast of Antarctica. This current covers an area 2500 km wide, extends to a depth of more than 1 km and transports up to 200 million tons of water every second. There are no large land masses along the path of the Western Winds, and it connects the waters of three oceans - the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian - in its circular flow.
The Gulf Stream is one of the largest warm currents Northern Hemisphere. It passes through the Gulf Stream and carries the warm tropical waters of the Atlantic Ocean to high latitudes. This gigantic flow of warm water largely determines the climate of Europe, making it soft and warm. Every second, the Gulf Stream carries 75 million tons of water (for comparison: the Amazon, the deepest river in the world, carries 220 thousand tons of water). At a depth of about 1 km, a countercurrent is observed under the Gulf Stream.
UPWELLING
In many areas of the World Ocean, deep waters “float” to the surface of the sea. This phenomenon, called upwelling (from the English up - up and well - gushing - approx. from geoglobus.ru), occurs, for example, if the wind drives away warm surface waters, and colder ones rise in their place. The water temperature in upwelling areas is lower than the average at a given latitude, which creates favorable conditions for the development of plankton, and, consequently, other marine organisms - fish and marine animals that feed on them. Upwelling areas are the most important fishing areas of the World Ocean. They are at western shores continents: Peruvian-Chilean - y South America, Californian - in North America, Benguela - in South-West Africa, Canary - in West Africa.