Thus, ocean currents regulate global climate, helping to counteract the uneven distribution of solar radiation reaching Earth's surface. Without currents in the ocean, regional temperatures would be more extreme — super hot at the equator and frigid toward the poles — and much less of Earth's land would be habitable. The air we breathe: The ocean produces over half of the world's oxygen and absorbs 50 times more carbon dioxide than our atmosphere. Climate regulation: Covering 70 percent of the Earth's surface, the ocean transports heat from the equator to the poles, regulating our climate and weather patterns.
It impacts on marine life by moving heat from the equator toward the poles, ocean currents play an important role in controlling the climate. Ocean currents are also critically important to sea life. They carry nutrients and food to organisms that live permanently attached in one place, and carry reproductive cells and ocean life to new places.