Ocean surface currents
Global winds blowing across earth surface.
What creates surface currents?
The East Australian Current transports a staggering 40 million cubic metres of water
What transports water across the ocean?
Surface currents greatly affect the climate in many parts of the world.
What affects climate?
Deep currents are stream-like movements of ocean water far below the ocean surface.
What are deep currents?
A crest is the highest point and the trough is the lowest point.
What is a wave´s crest?
Surface currents flow like rivers in distinct patterns around the Earth
How do surface currents flow?
The East Australian Current does flow along
the East coast of Australia
Where does the East Australian Current flow?
Warm water currents begin near the equator and carry warm water to other parts of the ocean.
Where do warm water currents begin and end?
Deep currents are stream-like movements of ocean water far below the ocean surface.
Why do deep currents look like?
Waves are made of two main components - crests and troughs.
What two main components make up waves?
Surface currents are controlled by four
factors: global winds, the Coriolis effect,
continental deflections, and the water
temperature.
What factors control surface currents
Speeds in the core of the EAC are
among the strongest in the South Pacific, up
to 4.5 mph an hour.
How strong are the speed of the EAC?
Cold water currents begin closer to the poles and carry cool water to other parts of the ocean. The map below shows the Earth's surface currents.
Do cold water currents begin closer to the poles or farther?
Ocean water gets denser when it becomes saltier or gets colder.
When does ocean water get denser?
A wavelength is the distance between two adjust crests or troughs.
What is a wavelength?
Surface currents can reach depths of several hundred meters and lengths of several thousand kilometers.
What depths can surface currents reach?
The current is almost 100 km wide, and more than 1.5 km deep
How wide and deep is the EAC current?
Surface currents greatly affect the climate in many parts of the world.
Do surface currents affect the climate greatly?
Starting at a depth of about 200 meters, the water temperature becomes colder as the depth increases.
At what depth does the water temperature become colder?
Ocean aves form because of friction between the wind and the surface of the water.
What forms ocean aves?
Hemisphere turn clockwise while currents in the Southern Hemisphere turn counterclockwise.
What direction do different Hemispheres turn?
It
does flow southward from the Great Barrier
Reef
Does the EAC flow southward from the great barrier reef?
Cold-water currents create cooler climates in coastal areas that would be much warmer (San Francisco).
Do cold-water currents create cooler climates in coastal areas?
The denser water moves along the ocean floor and eventually travels toward the equator in the form of a deep current.
What happens to the denser water?
Waves move in a circular pattern.
What pattern do waves move in?