OCEAN 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: California Current, Ocean Current, Ekman Transport
Document Summary
Surface currents (top 10% / 400m of the ocean: caused by winds/friction, energy is transferred from air to water. Deeper water is affected by thermohaline circulation: affected by density, gravity, and other factors. Gyres: clockwise or counter clockwise circulation of inter connecting surface, 4 currents make up a gyre, north atlantic gyre. Ocean current temperatures determine the climate of a location. Thursday, february 19, 2015: ontario vs london, transfer heat from tropical to polar, distribution of nutrients. Factors that affect surface currents: wind direction, solar energy - heat transfer from the equator, continents and ocean basin topography - deflection in circular pattern. The ekman transport: the coriolis effect via ekman transport. Overall ekman transport is 90 from the surface wind. Net movement of the water is 90 to the right in the northern hemisphere and 90 to the left in the southern hemisphere. Each layer is influenced by the layer directly above.
