Around the Block: Cold Ocean

Minecraft’s tropical oceans are full of distractions, packed to the gills with tropical fish. Its frozen oceans are difficult to access, locked below endless floating sea ice. Its lukewarm oceans are choked with kelp and seagrass, while its deep cold oceans are full of danger lurking below the waves.

What does that leave for an aspiring aquanaut? I’ll tell you what it leaves – Minecraft’s beautiful, bountiful, cold ocean. And in a stunning coincidence, that cold ocean just so happens to be our biome of the month. Miracles happen every day, people.

Minecraft’s cold oceans usually generate next to chilly-but-not-frozen biomes like taigas, with a dark-indigo tint to the water. The seafloor is mostly gravel, with a bit of dirt, sand, and clay, and there’s some vegetation but not as much as you’d generally find in a lukewarm ocean biome.

You will find plenty of life below the waves – cod, salmon, dolphins, and squid are abundant here. That makes feeding yourself pretty easy, as long as you’ve practiced your fishing skills. Occasional shipwrecks and ocean ruins provide tempting goodies, but be on the lookout for drowned and other nasties who guard those treasures.

You might think that oceans in the real world are pretty still below the surface waves, like a giant puddle – but nothing could be further from the truth. They’re more like giant rivers, with strong currents driven by temperature and saltiness differences between different places. People who study these currents are known as “Oceanographers”.

Generally, currents near the surface are warmer and move from the equator to the poles, while colder water travels at the bottom of the sea from the poles back to the equator. But the Earth’s rotation complicates things a bit – it means that currents on the western side of an ocean basin (like off the coasts of Brazil, Florida, Japan, and Madagascar) tend to be warmer, while those in the eastern sides (like off the coasts of the Canary Islands, Peru, Namibia, and western Australia) tend to be colder.

So next time you’re planning a beach holiday, think carefully about where you are in relation to the rest of the ocean. And remember – there are always tropical oceans and beaches to visit in Minecraft instead!