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What causes the direction of currents?
As wind or an ocean current moves, the Earth spins underneath it. The Coriolis effect bends the direction of surface currents to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and left in the Southern Hemisphere. The Coriolis effect causes winds and currents to form circular patterns.
What influences the direction of surface currents?
Surface currents in the ocean are driven by global wind systems that are fueled by energy from the sun. Patterns of surface currents are determined by wind direction, Coriolis forces from the Earth’s rotation, and the position of landforms that interact with the currents.
What 4 factors influence the direction of the currents?
There are four factors affecting the origin and flow of Ocean Currents i.e. Rotation and gravitational force of the Earth; Oceanic factors (temperature, salinity, density, pressure gradient and melting of ice); atmospheric factors (atmospheric pressure, winds, rainfall, evaporation and insolation); factors that …
What influences current direction and strength?
Depth contours, shoreline configurations, and interactions with other currents influence a current’s direction and strength. The two basic types of currents – surface and deep-water currents – help define the character and flow of ocean waters across the planet.
What directly influences Deepwater currents?
What directly influences deepwater currents? Surface currents are caused by wind; deepwater currents are caused by differences in water density. Wind and ocean currents do not move in straight lines; instead, they curve as they move across the planet.
What are the factors that cause and influence the direction of ocean currents?
Winds, water density, and tides all drive ocean currents. Coastal and sea floor features influence their location, direction, and speed. Earth’s rotation results in the Coriolis effect which also influences ocean currents.
What is the direction of ocean currents?
As a result, ocean currents move clockwise (anticyclonically) in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise (cyclonically) in the Southern Hemisphere; Coriolis force deflects them about 45° from the wind direction, and at the Equator there would be no apparent horizontal deflection.
What directly influences Deepwater currents quizlet?
Deepwater currents are dependent on temperature and salinity.
What directly influences Deepwater currents Brainly?
Answer Expert Verified The differences in water temperature and salinity are responsible for deep water or ocean currents. Other inducing factors for water currents are wind, cabbeling, Coriolis effect and breaking waves.
What causes currents to flow in different directions?
Different winds cause currents to flow in different directions. objects from a straight path due to the Earth’s rotation. Also, what are the 3 factors that directly affect surface currents in the ocean? List the three factors that control surface currents: Global winds, continental deflection and temperature, and the Coriolis effect.
How does wind affect the direction of ocean currents?
Prevailing or planetary winds (e.g., trade winds, westerlies and polar winds) play major roles in the origin of ocean currents. The wind blowing on the water surface also moves water in its direction due to its friction with the water. Most of the ocean currents of the world follow the direction of prevailing winds.
How are boundary currents related to global winds?
Boundary Currents. Global winds drag on the water’s surface, causing it to move and build up in the direction that the wind is blowing. And just as the Coriolis effect deflects winds to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere, it also results in the deflection of major surface ocean currents to…
How are deep ocean currents different from surface currents?
Deep ocean currents are density-driven and differ from surface currents in scale, speed, and energy. Water density is affected by the temperature, salinity (saltiness), and depth of the water. The colder and saltier the ocean water, the denser it is.