Currents
What is a large body of water that flows in a certain direction?
An ocean current.
Upwelling often occurs where?
Along coastlines.
What is the Coriolis effect caused by?
The Earth's rotation.
What is the estimated number of years it takes for the Great Ocean Conveyer Belt to complete a cycle?
Roughly 1,000 years.
How do warm and cold-water currents affect the climate of the Earth?
Depending on the type of current, they either provide the area with humid, warmer temperatures, or less humid, cooler temperatures.
What influences the ocean currents and the direction they move?
The prevailing winds.
What replaces the water that sinks as a result of the upwelling?
Colder water from the deep ocean.
What is the Coriolis effect?
How the shapes of continents and other land masses
affect the flow and speed of currents.
What is the Great Ocean Conveyer Belt?
The term used to describe the large system of ocean currents that affect weather and climate around the world.
How do regions near warm-water currents contrast with regions near cold-water currents?
Regions near warm-water currents tend to be warmer and more humid, whereas regions near cold-water currents tend to be colder and less humid.
What is a narrow, powerful current that flows directly away from shore?
A rip current.
What is upwelling?
The vertical movement of water towards the ocean's surface.
What is an example of something caused by the Coriolis effect?
Example: The fact that airplanes tend to curve in the air as they are moving from point A to point B, rather than stay in a straight line.
What is the importance of the Great Ocean Conveyer Belt?
It circulates thermal energy around the Earth.
How does the California Current affect its nearby areas?
By transferring its cooler energy to its nearby areas, keeping them steady.
What carries warm or cold water horizontally across the ocean's surface?
Surface currents.
What does upwelling bring to the ocean's surface?
Cold, nutrient-rich water from deep in the ocean.
What strange characteristic is formed as a result of the Coriolis effect?
The fact that currents in the Northern Hemisphere curve to the right, whereas currents in the Southern Hemisphere curve to the left.
What happens in the Great Ocean Conveyer Belt in the Indian and Pacific Oceans?
Deep water returns to the surface in upwelling.
What is a vertical current that carries water from the surface to deeper parts of the ocean?
Density currents.
What causes upwelling to occur?
When wind blows across the ocean's surface and pushes water away from the area.
Currents form small or large loops and move at different speeds, which depends on what?
The land masses they come in contact with.
What happens in the Great Ocean Conveyer Belt in the North Atlantic?
High salinity water cools and sinks.
How do these currents help moderate the climate?