Why are equatorial currents important?
The equatorial countercurrent plays an important role in the circulation of mass, heat, and salt in the tropical oceans. It provides one of the pathways through which warm surface water returns eastward after being transported westward in the South Equatorial Current.
What is the reason for counter equatorial current?
Theoretical Background. The NECC is a direct response to the meridional changes in the coriolis parameter and the wind stress curl near the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). In part the NECC owes its existence to the fact that the ITCZ is not located at the equator, rather several degrees of latitude to the north.
Why is the equatorial counter current in the Atlantic Ocean so poorly defined?
During the northern summer, the currents in the western equatorial Atlantic are so intense that they become unstable. One important factor is the enormous latitudinal shear between the eastward North Equatorial Countercurrent and the adjacent westward South Equatorial Current.
What is the importance of ocean currents?
By moving heat from the equator toward the poles, ocean currents play an important role in controlling the climate. Ocean currents are also critically important to sea life. They carry nutrients and food to organisms that live permanently attached in one place, and carry reproductive cells and ocean life to new places.
Which months that the equatorial current is strongest?
However, the surface geostrophic currents were eastward, east of 8°W, except for the period between June and September, when they were westward. The geostrophic component of the SEC is strongest during the austral winter and weakest during the austral summer (Molinari, 1982).
Which ocean basin has the strongest Equatorial drift?
The Gulf Stream and the Kuroshio Current are the two strongest. Conversely, on the eastern sides of the ocean basins, the currents are much wider, slower, shallower and not as close to the coast. These eastern boundary currents include the Canary, California, Benguela, and Peru Currents.
What is the other name of Kuroshio Current?
Kuroshio, (Japanese: “Black Current”, ) also called Japan Current, strong surface oceanic current of the Pacific Ocean, the northeasterly flowing continuation of the Pacific North Equatorial Current between Luzon of the Philippines and the east coast of Japan.
Which best describes the Kuroshio Current?
The Kuroshio is a warm current—24 °C (75 °F) annual average sea-surface temperature—about 100 kilometres (62 mi) wide and produces frequent small to meso-scale eddies.
Whats a deep current?
Deep ocean currents in oceans are caused by a large amount of sinking surface water. Surface water is the upper layer of water closest to the top surface. Thermohaline circulation, or the sinking of highly dense surface water, is the source of deep currents in oceans.
What is the difference between Oyashio current and Kuroshio Current?
The Kuroshio Current carrying relatively warm and saline waters flows northward along the east coast of Japan, turns eastward near 34. The southward-flowing Oyashio Current, which carries fresh and cold subarctic water, meets with Kuroshio water at approximately 37.
What are the effects of Oyashio current?
The current has an important impact on the climate of the Russian Far East, mainly in Kamchatka and Chukotka, where the northern limit of tree growth is moved south up to ten degrees compared with the latitude it can reach in inland Siberia.
Which type of current is a Oyashio current?
… In contrast, the Oyashio Current is a western boundary current in the wind-driven North Pacific Subpolar Gyre (Fig. 1a; Qiu, 2001) . The Oyashio flows along the coast of Hokkaido and splits into two paths. …
How do Kamchatka current?
Explanation: The Kamchatka current acts like a conveyor belt that brings cold water to the Northeastern part of Japan which makes the temperature low (colder). The Kuroshio current on the other hand brings warm water to the Southern part of Japan which makes the temperature high (warmer).
How does topography affect climate Brainly?
Answer: The topography of an area can influence the weather and climate. If an area is close to a body of water it tends to make milder climates. Mountainous areas tend to have more extreme weather because it acts as a barrier to air movements and moisture.
What dry region forms at the back of mountains?
Rain shadow
How does Kuroshio Current affect the northeastern part of Japan Brainly?
Answer: Kuroshio current brings warm water, therefore northeastern part and southeastern part of Japan experiences warm climate.
What are the different ocean currents that carry warm water give at least three examples?
Western boundary currents are warm, deep, narrow, and fast flowing currents that form on the west side of ocean basins due to western intensification. They carry warm water from the tropics poleward. Examples include the Gulf Stream, the Agulhas Current, and the Kuroshio.
How do water currents affect climate?
Ocean currents act much like a conveyor belt, transporting warm water and precipitation from the equator toward the poles and cold water from the poles back to the tropics. Thus, ocean currents regulate global climate, helping to counteract the uneven distribution of solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface.
Is the Kamchatka current warm or cold?
The Kamchatka Current is a cold-water current flowing south-westward from the Bering Strait, along the Siberian Pacific coast and the Kamchatka Peninsula. A portion of this current then becomes the Oyashio Current while the remainder joins the warmer North Pacific Current.