In January 1992, a container ship near the International Date
Line, headed to Tacoma, Washington from Hong Kong, lost 12
containers during severe storm conditions. One of these
containers held a shipment of 29,000 bathtub toys. Ten months
later, the first of these plastic toys began to wash up onto the
coast of Alaska. Driven by the wind and ocean currents, these
toys continue to wash ashore during the next several years and
some even drifted into the Atlantic Ocean. The ultimate reason
for the world's surface ocean currents is the sun. The heating
of the earth by the sun has produced semi-permanent pressure
centers near the surface. When wind blows over the ocean around
these pressure centers, surface waves are generated by
transferring some of the wind's energy, in the form of momentum,
from the air to the water. This constant push on the surface of
the ocean is the force that forms the surface currents. Learning
Lesson: How it is Currently Done Around the world, there are
some similarities in the currents.