Vocabulary
Large body of air with consistent temperature and humidity.
What is an air mass?
How does a gyre form?
When prevailing winds push ocean waters, creating circular currents that are influenced by the Coriolis effect, Earth's rotation, and the shape of coastlines.
These are wind driven and primarily travel horizontally, located within and above the pycnocline.
What are surface currents?
The movement of water in the thermohaline circulation is primarily powered by differences in this property, which is a result of temperature and salinity variations.
What is density?
This forms directly from sea water.
What is sea ice?
Boundary between two air masses, often causing weather changes.
What is a front
What are the 5 Subtropical Gyres?
North Atlantic Gyre
South Atlantic Gyre
North Pacific Gyre
South Pacific Gyre
Indian Ocean Gyre
Driven by density differences primarily travel in vertical and horizontal motions, 90% of ocean water.
What are deep ocean currents?
This term refers to the large-scale ocean current system driven by temperature and salinity differences.
What is thermohaline circulation?
Floating bodies of ice, ones located in the arctic calve from Western Greenland glaciers.
What are icebergs?
Vertical movement of surface water downward.
What is downwelling?
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is located within this gyre, which is the largest and most well known.
What is the North Pacific Gyre?
Located on the eastern side of ocean basins; cold, slow, shallow, wide, causing a dry climate.
What are eastern boundary currents?
A significant slowdown or disruption in thermohaline circulation, such as what might occur with global warming, could have devastating effects on this important climate system, which affects global weather patterns.
What is the Gulf Stream?
What is shelf ice?
Vertical movement of cold, nutrient rich water to the surface.
What is upwelling?
This oceanic feature, also known as the "subtropical gyre" forms in the Atlantic Ocean between the Azores and Bermuda.
What is the North Atlantic Gyre?
Located on the western side of ocean basins; warm, fast, deep, narrow, causing a humid climate.
What are western boundary currents?
This redistributes heat from the equator to the poles helping moderate temperatures and global climates.
What is the conveyor-belt circulation?
Iceberg production is ____ because of global warming.
What is increasing?
What is the Coriolis Effect?
What is the tendency to shift right in the Northern Hemisphere and left in the Southern Hemisphere?
In addition to the movement of water, these large-scale gyres can influence global weather patterns, including this phenomenon.
What is El Niño?
Explain the difference between equatorial currents and equatorial countercurrents.
Equatorial currents are located North or South of the equator and travel Westward. Equatorial countercurrents flow Eastward between North and South Equatorial currents.
How does global warming affect the conveyor-belt circulation?
The earth's warming causes ice to melt which adds freshwater to the ocean reducing salinity and density which prevents water from sinking, slowing circulation.
This current is located in Antarctica connecting the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean. It is cold, fast, and deep.
What is the Antarctic Circumpolar Current?