What causes Continental deflection?
What causes Continental deflection?
Continental Deflections When surface currents meet continents, the currents deflect, or change direction. Currents are also affected by the temperature of the water in which they form.
On which side of the ocean basin are the cold currents?
Cold currents are surface currents that contain cold water, generally flowing from the poles towards the equator on the eastern side of ocean basins.
When the wind is deflected due to the rotation of the Earth it is called as?
Because the Earth rotates on its axis, circulating air is deflected toward the right in the Northern Hemisphere and toward the left in the Southern Hemisphere. This deflection is called the Coriolis effect.
What happens when a current runs into a continent?
Where currents converge or run into a continent, water piles up. The major ocean gyres circle around a low mound a meter or so high. And in summer, intense sunlight can heat and expand seawater, raising the surface by several centimeters in the tropics. Currents run down these gentle slopes under the pull of gravity.
Why is the Alaska Current warm?
Wind moving across the Alaska Current picks up not only the current’s warm temperatures but a great deal of moisture as well. As the winds strike the mountains, the air is forced to rise. The resulting expansion and cooling delivers to the mountains much rain and snow.
Why is Pacific Ocean so cold?
It is produced by equatorial trade winds that blow from east to west, piling up warm surface water in the west Pacific, and also pushing surface water away from the equator itself. This makes way for colder waters to well up from the depths, creating the cold tongue.
What dry wind blows down the eastern slopes of the Rockies?
chinook, warm, dry wind descending the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, primarily in winter.
Where does geostrophic wind occur?
The geostrophic wind is the wind flow that occurs in the middle latitudes aloft in the troposphere.
What happens to an ocean current when it hits a continent?
when surface currents meet continents the currents are deflected and change direction. In the Northern Hemisphere currents are deflected to the right. In the Southern Hemisphere currents are deflected to the left. one of the strongest surface currents on Earth.
What would happen if there were no continents?
If there were no continents, these surface currents would travel all the way around the Earth, parallel to the equator. However, the presence of the continents prevents this unimpeded flow.
Is the Japan current warm or cold?
warm
The Kuroshio Current (黒潮), also known as the Black or Japan Current (日本海流, Nihon Kairyū) or the Black Stream, is a north-flowing, warm ocean current on the west side of the North Pacific Ocean basin.
Which ocean is the deepest?
western Pacific Ocean
The deepest part of the ocean is called the Challenger Deep and is located beneath the western Pacific Ocean in the southern end of the Mariana Trench, which runs several hundred kilometers southwest of the U.S. territorial island of Guam. Challenger Deep is approximately 10,935 meters (35,876 feet) deep.