Currents • What is a current? • Are there different types of currents? • What causes currents? • Why are currents important? • What are some major currents?
Dec 30, 2015
Currents
• What is a current?
• Are there different
types of currents?
• What causes currents?
• Why are currents important?
• What are some major currents?
Cool Current Facts
• The Gulf Stream current transports ten-thousand times as much water as the Mississippi river.
• The Gulf Stream flows as fast as 2m/sec or about 4 miles per hour.
• If caught in this current you could be carried almost a hundred miles in one day.
What is a Current?
• A current is defined as a large mass of continuously moving ocean water.
What Causes Currents
• Wind
• Density (salinity/temperature)
• Topography (coasts)
• Coriolis effect (earth’s rotation)
Coriolis Effect• The rotation of the earth
causes moving objects to veer to the right in the northern hemisphere, to the left in the southern hemisphere.
• Objects near the equator are moving much faster than objects near the poles.
Coriolis Effect
Types of Currents
• Surface (wind driven)• Deep (density driven)• Vertical (wind/density driven)
Surface Currents
• Most visible current
• Occur in the top 1 km of the ocean
• Produced by wind and redirected by land and the Coriolis effect
• This Results in a large circular rotation called a Gyre
Gyre
Create a Current Map
• Label the continents
• Label the oceans
• Using your knowledge of surface currents determine and label where the five major Gyres and one circumpolar current are located.
• Use arrows to show the direction of flow.
• Label the major currents.
Major Currents
• California Current• Kuroshio Current• North and South Equatorial Current
• West Wind Drift• Gulf Stream• Peru Current
Global Currents
Thanks to:
Images:http://www.onr.navy.mil/focus/ocean/motion/currents1.htm
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/coriolis_effect.htmlwww.jimloy.com/science/ shower.htm
www.ldeo.columbia.edu/ ~jean/research.html
Information:http://www.onr.navy.mil/focus/ocean/motion/currents1.htm
http://fermi.jhuapl.edu/student/phillips/
http://www.whoi.edu/coastal-briefs/Coastal-Brief-94-05.html
http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/oceanography_currents_1.html
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/coriolis_effect.html