What causes upwelling and downwelling quizlet?
Winds blowing from the north cause upwelling along the continents’ eastern coasts in the Southern Hemisphere. Upwelling and downwelling also occur in the open ocean where winds cause surface waters to diverge (move away) from a region (causing upwelling) or to converge toward some region (causing downwelling).
What is Ekman transport quizlet?
spiral is in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere) Ekman transport: Net movement of water in right angle directions to the wind.
What causes Ekman transport?
Ekman transport occurs when ocean surface waters are influenced by the friction force acting on them via the wind. As the wind blows it casts a friction force on the ocean surface that drags the upper 10-100m of the water column with it.
What is the cause of the Ekman spiral?
The Ekman spiral occurs as a consequence of the Coriolis effect. Click the image for a larger view. Like the surface water, however, the deeper water is deflected by the Coriolis effect—to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere.
What is the difference between Ekman transport and geostrophic flow?
The Ekman transport piles up water in the center of the gyre, making the water level higher in the gyre center than on the edges of the gyres. This results in a clockwise current around the central “hill” called geostrophic flow , which moves in the same direction as the rotating gyre.
What does the Ekman spiral describe?
An Ekman spiral (A) is a rotating column of water that forms when water moves at an angle to the wind direction due to the Coriolis Effect. The net effect of the rotating water (B) is movement at right angle to the wind direction. The water turns to the left instead of right in the Southern Hemisphere.
Where is the Ekman spiral?
The classic Ekman spiral has been observed under sea ice, but observations remain rare in open-ocean conditions. This is due both to the fact that the turbulent mixing in the surface layer of the ocean has a strong diurnal cycle and to the fact that surface waves can destabilize the Ekman spiral.
What are the two main forces responsible for the existence of the Ekman spiral?
Within the oceanic Ekman layer, the wind stress is balanced by the Coriolis force and frictional forces.
Which way does the wind spiral in the northern hemisphere?
But because the Earth rotates, circulating air is deflected. Instead of circulating in a straight pattern, the air deflects toward the right in the Northern Hemisphere and toward the left in the Southern Hemisphere, resulting in curved paths. This deflection is called the Coriolis effect.
Which way will you wind up curving If you are in the Southern Hemisphere?
The Coriolis effect influences wind direction around the world in this way: in the Northern Hemisphere it curves winds to the right; in the Southern Hemisphere it curves them left. The exception is with low pressure systems.