An ocean current is a marine stream moving through a larger body of water. Just as a river moves through the earth, an ocean current, to put it simply, is a "river" of water moving through the ocean.
One of the largest and most famous ocean currents is the Gulf Stream, which flows from the Gulf of Mexico through the east coast of the United States to the coasts of northern Europe. Thanks to the warm Gulf Stream, Europe's climate is not as cold as it should be.
But the largest ocean current is not the Gulf Current, but the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, a large flow of moving water circulating around Antarctica.
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current has a width ranging from 300 km to 2,000 km. Its average speed when passing between South America and Antarctica is a little more than one kilometer per hour.
This current acts as a shield against other warm water currents that could affect the permanent ice of Antarctica.
The flow of the current is estimated to be about 10 billion cubic feet per second, three times that of the Gulf Stream and 2,000 times that of the Amazon, the largest river on the planet.
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