What causes surface currents and deep currents?

Deep currents are driven by temperature and water density/salinity. Of course, deep currents impact surface currents, which carry warm water to the poles. Surface currents are also driven by global wind systems fueled by energy from the sun. Factors like wind direction and the Coriolis effect play a role.

What are the causes for surface currents?

Surface currents in the ocean are driven by global wind systems that are fueled by energy from the sun. Patterns of surface currents are determined by wind direction, Coriolis forces from the Earth’s rotation, and the position of landforms that interact with the currents.

What is the main cause for deep-ocean currents?

These deep-ocean currents are driven by differences in the water’s density, which is controlled by temperature (thermo) and salinity (haline). This process is known as thermohaline circulation. In the Earth’s polar regions ocean water gets very cold, forming sea ice.

What do deep currents do?

These currents bring heat from the tropics to the polar regions; the Gulf Stream, for instance, brings warm water along the eastern coast of the US up to Northern Europe. Deep currents, also known as thermohaline circulation, result from differences in water density.

How do the causes of surface and deep water currents differ?

How do the causes of surface and deepwater currents differ? Surface currents are caused by wind; deepwater currents are caused by differences in water density. Wind and ocean currents do not move in straight lines; instead, they curve as they move across the planet.

What causes deep ocean currents quizlet?

What causes deep water currents to move? It is caused by temperature and salinity of the water. It is from the surface to 200m deep. It is caused by wind action, Earth’s spin, and the shape of the continents.

What are two factors that cause changes in the motion of surface currents like the Gulf Stream?

Wind direction, the spin of Earth, and differences in temperature contribute to currents. Currents occur at the surface of and deep within the ocean. The Coriolis effect contributes to the direction of current flow. Wind direction, the spin of Earth, and differences in temperature contribute to currents.

Which affects both deep water and surface currents in the ocean?

These currents are on the ocean’s surface and in its depths, flowing both locally and globally. Winds, water density, and tides all drive ocean currents. Coastal and sea floor features influence their location, direction, and speed. Earth’s rotation results in the Coriolis effect which also influences ocean currents.

How do deep currents affect the oceans?

What are the effects of deep ocean currents? The movement of this heat through local and global ocean currents affects the regulation of local weather conditions and temperature extremes, stabilization of global climate patterns, cycling of gases, and delivery of nutrients and larva to marine ecosystems.

What are the differences between surface and deep currents?

Surface currents are driven by global wind systems that are fueled by energy from the sun. … Deep currents, also known as thermohaline circulation, result from differences in water density. These currents occur when cold, dense water at the poles sinks.

What is the Coriolis effect and what causes it?

The Coriolis effect is a natural event in which objects seem to get deflected while traveling around and above Earth. The planet Earth is constantly rotating, or spinning, from west to east. Every 24 hours, it completes a full rotation. This rotation causes the Coriolis effect.

What are surface currents?

A current is a stream of moving water that flows through the ocean. Surface currents are caused mainly by winds but not daily winds. Surface currents are caused by the major wind belts. These winds blow in the same direction all the time. So they can keep water moving in the same direction.

Which motion causes the Coriolis effect on Earth?

The main cause of the Coriolis effect is the Earth’s rotation. As the Earth spins in a counter-clockwise direction on its axis, anything flying or flowing over a long distance above its surface is deflected.

What causes Coriolis acceleration?

Coriolis acceleration is the acceleration due to the rotation of the earth, experienced by particles (water parcels, for example) moving along the earth’s surface. Ocean currents are influenced by Coriolis acceleration. Coriolis acceleration is generated by the eastward rotation of the earth around the N-S axis.

What is the wind that blows parallel to the isobars?

gradient wind

4. Where the wind blows parallel to curved isobars, the wind is called a gradient wind.

Why does the equator have zero Coriolis force?

Because there is no turning of the surface of the Earth (sense of rotation) underneath a horizontally and freely moving object at the equator, there is no curving of the object’s path as measured relative to Earth’s surface. The object’s path is straight, that is, there is no Coriolis effect.

What is Ferrell’s law?

: a statement in meteorology: a wind in any direction tends to deflect to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern with a force that is directly proportional to the mass of wind in question, its velocity, the sine of the latitude, and the angular velocity of the earth’s rotation.

What is Ferrel’s law class ninth?

Ferrel’s Law states that as a result of the Earth’s rotation on its axis from west to east, wind or any other moving object in the Northern Hemisphere is deflected to the right and in the Southern Hemisphere, it is deflected to the left of its course.

Is Ferrel’s law and Coriolis force Same?

Coriolis Force: An apparent force caused by the earth’s rotation. The Coriolis force is responsible for deflecting winds towards the right in the northern hemisphere and towards the left in the southern hemisphere. This is also known as ‘Ferrel’s Law’.

How are trade winds caused?

Trade winds are caused by the strong warming and evaporation within the atmosphere around the equator. (1) Around the equator, the warm air rises rapidly, carrying a lot of moisture.

What causes wind?

Wind is caused by uneven heating of the earth’s surface by the sun. Because the earth’s surface is made up of different types of land and water, it absorbs the sun’s heat at different rates. One example of this uneven heating is the daily wind cycle.

How are permanent winds caused?

The Coriolis Effect, in combination with an area of high pressure, causes the prevailing winds—the trade winds—to move from east to west on both sides of the equator across this 60-degree “belt.”

What are the causes and consequences of shifting of pressure belts?

Answer. The shifting of the pressure belts cause seasonal changes in the climate, especially between latitudes 30° and 40° in both hemispheres. In this region the Mediterranean type of climate is experienced because of shifting of permanent belts southwards and northwards with the overhead position of the sun.

What causes high pressure belts in the atmosphere?

Due to the rotation of the earth, the air from the equatorial region, which gets deflected towards the poles, descends in this region after becoming cold and heavy. This creates high pressure in the region and thereby forms the subtropical high pressure belts.

What is the main factor causing the break up of the continuous pressure belt?

In the absence of the revolution of the earth around the sun, the global pressure belts would have been permanent and stationary at their places but the relative position of the earth with the sun changes within a year due to earth’s revolution and thus the position of all the pressure belts except the polar high …