Importance
Knowledge of surface ocean currents is essential in reducing costs of shipping, since traveling with them reduces fuel costs. In the sail-ship era knowledge was even more essential. A good example of this is the Agulhas current, which long prevented Portuguese sailors from reaching India. Even today, the round-the-world sailing competitors employ surface currents to their benefit. Ocean currents are also very important in the dispersal of many life forms. An example is the life-cycle of the European Eel.
Ocean currents are important in the study of marine debris, and vice versa. These currents also affect temperatures throughout the world. For example, the current that brings warm water up the north Atlantic to northwest Europe stops ice from forming by the shores, which would block ships from entering and exiting ports.
Read more about this topic: Ocean Current
Famous quotes containing the word importance:
“The moment Germany rises as a great power, France gains a new importance as a cultural power.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“An interesting play cannot in the nature of things mean anything but a play in which problems of conduct and character of personal importance to the audience are raised and suggestively discussed.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Society is the stage on which manners are shown; novels are the literature. Novels are the journal or record of manners; and the new importance of these books derives from the fact, that the novelist begins to penetrate the surface, and treat this part of life more worthily.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)