Oceans and Tides Paper (Earth Science) - Essay Example

What are surface ocean currents? In simple words rotation of the earth on its own axis causes winds that form gyres or circles on the surface of oceans. These gyres are found to move in clockwise circular patterns in the Northern Hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. This is phenomena is better known as surface ocean currents. These currents flow continuously but have varied intensity and in different proportions. There is no need to mention this that the concentration of these surface ocean currents depend on the depth or depletion of the sea bed.

All these factors can actually increase and decrease the speed of these currents. These surface ocean currents can influence weather conditions. These are quite significant for navigators who make use of these currents to steer through their way. What are waves, their characteristics and wave erosion? Wave is actually a disturbance that is produced by some other body. A water wave that is created by a moving boat is its best example. One of its features is the wavelength which happens to be distance between two waves, the second characteristic is frequency which can be measured by the number of crests or troughs passing through a single point at one time and the third is amplitude which is the displacement of a wave.

Wave erosion is also no different from other forms of erosion like soil erosion and coastal erosion. When waves hit on the banks, it carries a part of the soil with it from there. This is called wave erosion in short and can be avoided only by planting more trees as the roots of these trees can save the soil from eroding away. What is shoreline erosion? Besides wave erosion, shoreline erosion is another of its kind that is primarily caused due to movement of currents and waves. Apart from these two factors this erosion can also be caused by a change in sea level.

In general when these waves hit unguarded shores they wash off the sediments of the shoreline and this is called shoreline erosion. Any kind of soil erosion causes land misuse as it degrades on regular basis. Land is very important for animals and humans both which are very much obvious. This in turn becomes a reason for overpopulation and scarcity of usable tracts of land for cultivation and other important activities that are a prerequisite for human civilization. A few things that can control this type of erosion are planting tree that can absorb moisture, then building septic tanks and proper drainage system can also take care of this erosion.

What are tides? Now the most important of all the questions is what are tides? Tides are a natural occurrence that are caused by the gravitational forces of the both the moon and the sun. Since the earth is rotating on its own, hence the position of the moon keeps on changing. This change in placing causes the height of the tides to rise and fall accordingly. That is the closer the moon the higher the tides will be due to a strong gravitational pull. This is the reason behind the tides getting high and low in a day as well as in a month.

In addition to this another fact needs to be added that is the moon takes a little longer than 24 hours (around 50 minutes more) to come to same point with the earth. So this discussion shows that oceans and tides are equally important to us. This could again be explained in the context that because of the presence of this current in the water bodies, today the world can think of generating electricity. This tidal energy thus produced will be