Atlantic Ocean: currents and their characteristics

Many people know about the Gulf Stream, which, carrying huge masses of water from the equatorial latitudes to the polar ones, literally warms the north of Western Europe and Scandinavia. But few people know that there are other warm and cold currents of the Atlantic Ocean. How do they affect the climate of coastal areas? Our article will tell about it. In fact, there are a lot of currents in the Atlantic. We briefly list them for general development. These are the West Greenland, Angola, Antilles, Benguela, Guinea, Lomonosov, Brazilian, Guiana, Azores, Gulf Stream, Irminger, Canary, East Icelandic, Labrador, Portuguese, North Atlantic, Florida, Falkland, North Equatorial, South Equatorial, and also the Equatorial countercurrent . Not all of them have an effect on the climate big influence. Some of them are generally part or fragments of the main, larger currents. That's about them and will be discussed in our article.

Why do currents form?

In the World Ocean, large invisible "rivers without banks" are constantly circulating. Water in general is a very dynamic element. But everything is clear with rivers: they flow from the source to the mouth due to the difference in heights between these points. But what makes huge masses of water move within the ocean? Of the many reasons, two are the main ones: trade winds and changes in atmospheric pressure. Because of this, the currents are divided into drift and barogradient. The first are formed by trade winds - winds constantly blowing in one direction. Most of these currents Mighty rivers carry into the seas a large amount of water, different from sea water in density and temperature. Such currents are called stock, gravity and friction. Consideration should also be given to the great north-south extent of the Atlantic Ocean. The currents in this water area are therefore more meridional than latitudinal.

What are trade winds

Wind - here main reason movement of huge masses of water in the oceans. But what are the trade winds? The answer is to be found in the equatorial regions. The air warms up there more than in other latitudes. It rises and spreads along the upper layers of the troposphere towards the two poles. But already at a latitude of 30 degrees, having cooled thoroughly, it descends. Thus, a circulation of air masses is created. At the equator there is a zone low pressure, and in tropical latitudes - high. And here the rotation of the Earth around its axis manifests itself. If not for it, the trade winds would blow from the tropics of both hemispheres to the equator. But, as our planet rotates, the winds are deflected, becoming westerly. This is how the trade winds form the main currents of the Atlantic Ocean. In the Northern Hemisphere, they move clockwise, and in the Southern Hemisphere, they move counterclockwise. This is because in the first case, the trade winds blow from the northeast, and in the second - from the southeast.

Climate impact

Based on the fact that the main currents originate in the equatorial and tropical regions, it would be reasonable to assume that they are all warm. But this does not always happen. The warm current in the Atlantic Ocean, having reached the polar latitudes, does not fade away, but, having made a smooth circle, reverses, but has already cooled down considerably. This can be seen in the example of the Gulf Stream. It carries warm masses of water from the Sargasso Sea to northern Europe. Then, under the influence of the rotation of the Earth, it deviates to the west. Under the name of the Labrador Current, it descends along the coast of the North American continent to the south, cooling the coastal regions of Canada. It should be said that these masses of water are called warm and cold conditionally - with respect to temperature environment. For example, in the North Cape current in winter the temperature is only +2 °С, and in summer - maximum +8 °С. But it is called warm because the water in the Barents Sea is even colder.

Major currents of the Atlantic in the Northern Hemisphere

Here, of course, one cannot fail to mention the Gulf Stream. But others passing through Atlantic Ocean currents have an important influence on the climate of nearby territories. Near Cape Verde (Africa), the northeast trade wind is born. It drives huge warm masses of water to the west. Crossing the Atlantic Ocean, they connect with the Antilles and Guiana currents. This enhanced jet moves towards the Caribbean Sea. After that, the waters rush to the north. This continuous clockwise movement is called the warm North Atlantic Current. Its edge at high latitudes is indefinite, blurred, and at the equator it is more distinct.

The mysterious "Current from the Gulf" (Golf-Stream)

This is the name of the course of the Atlantic Ocean, without which Scandinavia and Iceland would turn, based on their proximity to the pole, into the land of eternal snows. It used to be thought that the Gulf Stream was born in the Gulf of Mexico. Hence the name. In fact, only a small part of the Gulf Stream flows out of the Gulf of Mexico. The main flow comes from Sargasso Sea. What is the mystery of the Gulf Stream? In the fact that, contrary to the rotation of the Earth, it does not flow from west to east, but in reverse direction. Its capacity exceeds the discharge of all the rivers of the planet. The speed of the Gulf Stream is impressive - two and a half meters per second on the surface. The current can be traced at a depth of 800 meters. And the width of the stream is 110-120 kilometers. Due to the high speed of the current, the water from the equatorial latitudes does not have time to cool. The surface layer has a temperature of +25 degrees, which, of course, plays a paramount role in shaping the climate of Western Europe. The mystery of the Gulf Stream is also that it does not wash the continents anywhere. There is always a strip of colder water between it and the shore.

Atlantic Ocean: Currents of the Southern Hemisphere

From the African continent to the American continent, the trade wind drives a jet, which, due to low pressure in the equatorial region, begins to deviate to the south. Thus begins a similar northern cycle. However, the South Equatorial Current moves counterclockwise. It also runs across the entire Atlantic Ocean. Currents Guiana, Brazilian (warm), Falkland, Benguela (cold) are part of this cycle.

Which are known to the whole world, hides many secrets. It is rich in cold and warm water layers, which will be discussed below.

The most powerful current in the northern hemisphere is the Gulf Stream. At first, scientists thought that it originated in This is where its name came from, which means "flow from the bay." It was later proven that only part of this flow exits the Gulf of Mexico. The main current originates from the Atlantic coast North America. Upon reaching the named ocean, the Gulf Stream deviates to the left, instead of shifting to the other side, according to the influence of the rotation of the Earth.

Antilles Current

The Antilles Current, together with the Florida Current, is a continuation of the Gulf Stream. It flows in a northerly direction from the well-known Bahamas. All of them - the Atlantic Ocean receives the Antilles water column as a result of the north equatorial flow and under the influence of Max speed- 2 km/h. The temperature does not exceed 28°C in summer and 25°C in winter.

North and South Equatorial Current

The southern current moves from Africa to America. In the area of ​​one of the capes it crosses, it is divided into two branches. One of them moves towards the northwest, where it changes its name to the Guiana current, and the second (named Brazilian) moves to the southwest, affecting Cape Horn. Parallel to the second is the Falkland Stream of Water.

The northern border of the Northern Equatorial Current has conditional features, while in the south the division is more noticeable. The stream begins near Cape Zeleny, or rather, from its western side. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the current becomes calmer and colder, therefore it changes its name to the Antilles.

These two moving streams of water are warm currents. The Atlantic Ocean is rich in such thicknesses in its water area. The rest will be discussed further.

Gulfstream

The Gulf Stream is a very powerful and extensive current that affects the climate of the American and European continents. The speed of water on its surface is 2.5 meters per second. The depth reaches 800 m, and the width is up to 120 kilometers. On the surface, the water temperature reaches 25-27 degrees Celsius, but in the middle depths it does not exceed 12 o C. Every second this current moves 75 million tons of water, which is ten times more than the mass carried by all the rivers of the Earth.

Moving to the northeast, the Gulf Stream reaches the Barents Sea. Here its waters cool and go south, forming the Greenland Current. Then it deviates again to the west and merges with the Gulf Stream.

North Atlantic Current

The North Atlantic is the second most important in such a body of water as the Atlantic Ocean. The currents that depart from the Gulf Stream are striking in their characteristics, and this one is no exception. It carries up to 40 million cubic meters of water in one second. Together with other Atlantic currents, the named has a significant impact on the weather of Europe. The Gulf Stream could not provide the continents with such a mild climate alone, because its warm waters pass at a sufficient distance from their shores.

Guinean Current

Atlantic Ocean - currents that constantly circulate in the water area. Guinean waters move from the western to the eastern. A little later they turn south. Usually, average temperature water is no more than 28 ° C. The speed in most cases does not exceed 44 km / day, although there are days when this figure reaches 88 km / day.

equatorial current

The Atlantic Ocean has a powerful countercurrent. The currents that form it are famous for their warm waters and relatively calm nature. Equatorial circulation is observed not only in the Atlantic, but also in the waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It was first mentioned in the 19th century. The main difference of a countercurrent is that it moves in the opposite direction of the wind and other circulations in the middle of a certain water area.

Lomonosov Current

The Atlantic Ocean is also available here) the second longest water area in the world. In 1959, the so-called Lomonosov circulation was discovered. It is named so in honor of the ship on which scientists first crossed these waters. The average depth is 150 meters. Since we are talking about a cold current, information about the temperature regime should be clarified - 20 ° C is most often observed here.

sea ​​currents

The article indicates some circulations of waters, which are rich in the Atlantic Ocean. Sea currents can arise during the acting forces, which, firstly, create, and, secondly, change the speed and direction of flows. Their formation is strongly influenced by relief, coastline and depth.

The Atlantic Ocean is second in size only to the Pacific, its area is approximately 91.56 million km². It is distinguished from other oceans by the strong indentation of the coastline, which forms numerous seas and bays, especially in the northern part. In addition, the total area of ​​river basins flowing into this ocean or its marginal seas is much larger than that of rivers flowing into any other ocean. Another difference of the Atlantic Ocean is a relatively small number of islands and a complex bottom topography, which, thanks to underwater ridges and uplifts, forms many separate basins.

North Atlantic Ocean

borders and coastlines. The Atlantic Ocean is divided into northern and southern parts, the boundary between which is conventionally drawn along the equator. From an oceanographic point of view, however, the equatorial countercurrent, located at 5-8 ° N latitude, should be attributed to the southern part of the ocean. The northern boundary is usually drawn along the Arctic Circle. In some places this boundary is marked by underwater ridges.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Atlantic Ocean is heavily indented coastline. Its relatively narrow northern part is connected to the Arctic Ocean by three narrow straits. In the northeast, the Davis Strait, 360 km wide (at the latitude of the Arctic Circle), connects it with the Baffin Sea, which belongs to the Arctic Ocean. In the central part, between Greenland and Iceland, there is the Danish Strait, with a width of only 287 km at its narrowest point. Finally, in the northeast, between Iceland and Norway, is the Norwegian Sea, approx. 1220 km. To the east, two water areas deeply protruding into the land separate from the Atlantic Ocean. The more northern of them begins with the North Sea, which to the east passes into the Baltic Sea with the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland. To the south there is a system of inland seas - the Mediterranean and the Black - with a total length of approx. 4000 km. In the Strait of Gibraltar, which connects the ocean with the Mediterranean Sea, there are two oppositely directed currents one below the other. The lower position is occupied by the current flowing from mediterranean sea into the Atlantic Ocean, since Mediterranean waters, due to more intensive evaporation from the surface, are characterized by greater salinity, and, consequently, greater density.

AT tropical zone in the southwest of the North Atlantic are the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, connected to the ocean by the Strait of Florida. The coast of North America is indented by small bays (Pamlico, Barnegat, Chesapeake, Delaware and Long Island Sound); to the northwest are the Bays of Fundy and St. Lawrence, Belle Isle, Hudson Strait, and Hudson Bay.

The largest islands are concentrated in the northern part of the ocean; these are the British Isles, Iceland, Newfoundland, Cuba, Haiti (Hispaniola) and Puerto Rico. On the eastern edge of the Atlantic Ocean there are several groups of small islands - Azores, Canaries, Cape Verde. There are similar groups in the western part of the ocean. Examples include the Bahamas, Florida Keys and Lesser Antilles. The archipelagos of the Greater and Lesser Antilles form an island arc surrounding the eastern part of the Caribbean Sea. In the Pacific Ocean, such island arcs are characteristic of deformation regions. earth's crust. Deep-water trenches are located along the convex side of the arc.

The basin of the Atlantic Ocean is bordered by a shelf, the width of which varies. The shelf is cut through by deep gorges - the so-called. submarine canyons. Their origin is still a matter of controversy. According to one theory, the canyons were cut by rivers when the ocean level was below present. Another theory links their formation with the activity of turbidity currents. It has been suggested that turbidity currents are the main agent responsible for the deposition of sediments on the ocean floor and that it is they that cut submarine canyons.

The bottom of the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean has a complex rugged relief, formed by a combination of underwater ridges, hills, basins and gorges. Most of the ocean floor, from a depth of about 60 m to several kilometers, is covered with thin silty deposits of dark blue or bluish-green color. A relatively small area is occupied by rocky outcrops and areas of gravel-pebble and sandy deposits, as well as deep-water red clays.

Telephone and telegraph cables have been laid on the shelf in the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean to connect North America with northwestern Europe. Here, the areas of industrial fishing, which are among the most productive in the world, are confined to the area of ​​the North Atlantic shelf.

In the central part of the Atlantic Ocean, almost repeating the outlines of the coastlines, a huge underwater mountain range approx. 16 thousand km, known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This ridge divides the ocean into two approximately equal parts. Most of the peaks of this underwater ridge do not reach the surface of the ocean and are located at a depth of at least 1.5 km. Some of the highest peaks rise above ocean level and form the islands - Azores in the North Atlantic and Tristan da Cunha - in the South. In the south, the range bends around the coast of Africa and continues further north into Indian Ocean. A rift zone extends along the axis of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Surface currents in the North Atlantic Ocean move clockwise. The main elements of this large system are the north-facing warm current Gulf Stream, as well as the North Atlantic, Canary and North Trade Wind (Equatorial) currents. The Gulf Stream follows from the Florida Strait and Cuba Island in a northerly direction along the coast of the USA and approximately 40°N. sh. deviates to the northeast, changing its name to the North Atlantic Current. This current divides into two branches, one of which follows the northeast along the coast of Norway and further into the Arctic Ocean. It is because of it that the climate of Norway and all of northwestern Europe is much warmer than would be expected at latitudes corresponding to the region stretching from Nova Scotia to southern Greenland. The second branch turns south and further southwest along the coast of Africa, forming the cold Canary Current. This current moves to the southwest and joins the North Equatorial Current, which heads west towards the West Indies, where it merges with the Gulf Stream. To the north of the North Equatorial Current is an area of ​​stagnant water, abundant in algae and known as the Sargasso Sea. Along the North Atlantic coast of North America, the cold Labrador Current passes from north to south, following from the Baffin Bay and the Labrador Sea and cooling the coast of New England.

South Atlantic Ocean

Some experts attribute to the Atlantic Ocean in the south the entire body of water up to the Antarctic ice sheet itself; others take for southern border The Atlantic is an imaginary line connecting Cape Horn in South America with the Cape of Good Hope in Africa. The coastline in the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean is much less indented than in the northern part; there are also no inland seas along which the influence of the ocean could penetrate deep into the continents of Africa and South America. The only major bay on the African coast is Guinea. On the coast of South America, large bays are also few in number. The southernmost tip of this continent is Tierra del Fuego- has a rugged coastline, bordered by numerous small islands.

There are no large islands in the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean, however, there are separate isolated islands, such as Fernando de Noronha, Ascension, Sao Paulo, St. Helena, the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, and in the extreme south - Bouvet, South Georgia , South Sandwich, South Orkney, Falkland Islands.

In addition to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, there are two main submarine mountain ranges in the South Atlantic. The whale range extends from the southwestern tip of Angola to about. Tristan da Cunha, where it joins the Mid-Atlantic. The Rio de Janeiro ridge stretches from the Tristan da Cunha Islands to the city of Rio de Janeiro and is a group of separate underwater hills.

The main current systems in the South Atlantic move counterclockwise. The South Tradewind current is directed to the west. At the protrusion of the eastern coast of Brazil, it is divided into two branches: the northern one carries water along the northern coast of South America to caribbean, and the southern, warm Brazilian current moves south along the coast of Brazil and joins the West Winds or Antarctic current, which heads east and then northeast. Part of this cold current separates and carries its waters north along the African coast, forming the cold Benguela Current; the latter eventually joins the South Equatorial Current. The warm Guinea Current moves south along the coast of Northwest Africa to the Gulf of Guinea.

The Atlantic Ocean is considered one of the largest and most voluminous in size, namely the second largest after Pacific Ocean. This ocean, the most studied and developed, when compared with other areas. Its location is as follows: from the east it is framed by the shores of North and South America, and in the west its borders end with Europe and Africa. In the South it goes into South ocean. And on the north side it borders on Greenland. The ocean is distinguished by the fact that there are very few islands in it, and the topography of its bottom is all dotted and has complex structure. The coastline is broken.

Characteristics of the Atlantic Ocean

If we talk about the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe ocean, then it occupies 91.66 million square meters. km. We can say that part of its territory is not the ocean itself, but existing seas, bays. The volume of the ocean is 329.66 million square meters. km, and its average depth is 3736 m. Where the Puerto Rico trench is located, it is considered the greatest depth of the ocean, which is 8742 m. There are two currents - North and South.

Atlantic Ocean from the north side

The border of the ocean from the north is marked in some places by ridges located under water. In this hemisphere, the Atlantic is framed by a rugged coastline. Its small northern part is connected to the Arctic Ocean by several narrow straits. Davis Strait is located in the northeast and connects the ocean with the Baffin Sea, which is also considered to belong to the Arctic Ocean. Closer to the center is the Danish Strait, which is less wide than Davis. Between Norway and Iceland towards the northeast lies the Norwegian Sea.

The Gulf of Mexico is located in the southwest of the North Ocean, which is connected by the Strait of Florida. Also the Caribbean. Many bays can be noted here, such as Barnegat, Delaware, Hudson Bay and others. It is in the northern side of the ocean that you can see the largest and largest islands, which are famous for their fame. These are Puerto Rico, the world famous Cuba and Haiti, as well as the British Isles and Newfoundland. Closer to the east you can find small groups of islands. it Canary Islands, Azores and Cape Verde. Closer to the west - the Bahamas, Lesser Antilles.

South Atlantic Ocean

Some geographers believe that southern part, this is all the space to Antarctica. Someone defines the border at Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope of the two continents. The coast in the south of the Atlantic Ocean is not as indented as in the north, and there are no seas here. There is one large gulf near Africa - Guinea. The farthest point in the south is Tierra del Fuego, which is framed by small islands in in large numbers. Also, you cannot find large islands here, but there are separate islands, like about. Ascension, St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha. In the extreme south you can find southern islands, Bouvet, Falkland and others.

As for the current in the south of the ocean, here all systems flow counterclockwise. Near the east of Brazil, the South Equatorial Current forks. One branch goes north, flows near the northern coast of South America, filling the Caribbean. And the second one is considered southern, very warm, moves near Brazil and soon connects with the Antarctic current, then heads to the east. Partially separates and turns into the Benguela Current, which is distinguished by its cold waters.

Landmarks of the Atlantic Ocean

There is a special underwater cave in the Belize Barrier Reef. They called it the Blue Hole. It is very deep, and inside it there is a whole series of caves, which are interconnected by tunnels. Deep into the cave reaches 120 m and is considered unique in its kind.

There is no person who does not know about bermuda triangle. But it is located in the Atlantic Ocean and excites the imagination of many superstitious travelers. Bermudas beckon with their mystery, but at the same time they frighten with the unknown.

It is in the Atlantic that you can see an unusual sea that has no shores. And all because it is located in the middle of the body of water, and its boundaries cannot be framed by land, only currents show the boundaries of this sea. This is the only sea in the world that has such unique data and is called the Sargasso Sea.

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