Ocean currents

[h4tt3n]

Recently I've been trying to understand how ocean currents work from a general perspective. While studying, an intrigueing question popped up in my mind, and I haven't been able to let it go unanswered. It is simply:

 

 

If the Earth was a completely smooth, ocean covered sphere (but otherwise unchanged), how would the ocean currents flow?

 

 

I think that answering this Q might help one to understand what makes all the world's real ocean currents tick. Any suggestion?

 

Cheers,

 

Michael

[Mr Skeptic]

Convection currents. Water is warmed at the equator and rises, cools at the poles and sinks. The warm surface water flows toward the poles, and the cold deep ocean water flows toward the equator.

 

The currents are vital because they help distribute heat evenly (they warm Europe and the US, for example), and also because they bring minerals from the ocean floor up to the surface. Without those minerals, the ocean's algae, which is far more important than all of our land plants to the carbon cycle, would die out.

[r1dermon]

right, however, surface currents are often driven by trade winds, and ALL currents are affected by the coriolis effect. the same reason a hurricane's path looks like a boomerang.

[h4tt3n]

@Mr Skeptic

 

Yes, this is pretty much what I've come up with too. This is called the thermohaline circulation when dealing with the world ocean as a whole. Thanks for mentionin the mineral transportation effect, I missed that one.

 

 

 

@r1dermon

 

Coriolis effect and wind indeed. Which means that I have to ask another Q in order to answer the first one:

 

How does winds move about on a smooth, spherical planet?

 

This is easier, since wind is less affected by the continents than ocean currents are. Here's a nice scematic that somewhat accounts for coriolis too:

 

 

I suppose that on a smooth planet the ocean currents will move in a similar fashion, transporting heat away from the equator towards the poles? But I'm still a bit unsure exactly how the coriolis effect influences the system as a whole...

 

Are the ocean currents split up into covection cells just like the atmosphere in the scematic?

 

If the warm currents flowing from the equator are constantly deflected by the coriolis effect, then how will they ever reach the poles?

[swansont]

If the warm currents flowing from the equator are constantly deflected by the coriolis effect, then how will they ever reach the poles?

 

The coriolis effect diminishes as you move away from the equator. There's something like a cos(latitude) term