Getting really off topic now ...
I hate to pretend to be an expert on any of this, but I suspect wind is the main generator of water circulation in a shallow lake. In the deep ocean, the sun's heat will cause remarkable currents which affect the climates across regions of the world. The sun heats the shallow Gulf of Mexico and Carribean Sea, and a definite current of warm water flows up the East Coast, around the top of the Atlantic, and heats Europe.
In the Pacific, warm water is pushed west across the tropic zone and collects in the Indonesian archipelego. The Pacific is deep, but the distance across is long, giving wind a chance to work. This flow of warm water at the top of the ocean pushes cold water back toward the Americas, which wells up as it gets to the shallows, bringing a load of organic material with it. This organic material, which had been created by living organisms which died and settled to the bottom, provides food for the ocean ecology along the west coast of the Americas and is the fuel for the rich fishing grounds of the eastern Pacific. Thus this circulation process which is undesirable in the Black Sea is very desirable to us in the Pacific.
For about the past 5,000 years, that process in the Pacific has developed a cycle lasting several years in which the circulation pattern reverses, causing the El Nino/La Nina effect. I don't know why that happens and I don't think anybody else does either.
I don't guarantee any of the above, especially the spelling.
Charles |
