What is Western intensification in ocean currents?

What is Western intensification in ocean currents?

western intensification The tendency of currents along the western margins of all oceans to be particularly strong, swift, and narrow, flowing northwards in the northern hemisphere and southwards in the southern hemisphere. Currents at the eastern margins of all oceans tend to be slower and more diffuse. See GYRE.

What causes westward intensification?

In other words, the currents off of the east coast of the continents are more intense than currents off of the west coast of the continents. This phenomenon is known as western intensification , and once again it is due to the Coriolis Effect. The greater the change in rotation speed, the stronger the Coriolis force.

How do wind driven currents affect the ocean?

Major surface ocean currents in the open ocean, however, are set in motion by the wind, which drags on the surface of the water as it blows. The winds pull surface water with them, creating currents. As these currents flow westward, the Coriolis effect—a force that results from the rotation of the Earth—deflects them.

What are the western and eastern boundary currents?

They fall into two categories: 1) western boundary currents, which are narrow, deep-reaching, and fast-flowing currents, not unlike jet streams, associated with current instability and eddy shedding; and 2) eastern boundary currents, which are shallow, cover a wider region, are of moderate strength, and are often …

What are wind driven currents?

Wind driven circulation describes the process in which winds moving along the surface of the ocean push the water in their direction and create currents near the surface. These winds are subject to the Coriolis Effect, which creates their motion based on the rotation of the earth.

What function do the wind driven currents play in the transport?

Wind driven currents create in the equatorial and warm zones of the earth’s oceans. The currents then transmit the warm water north, where the heat in the water is misplaced to the colder atmosphere. In the instance of the Gulf Stream, this transmission of heat to the air warms up England and Europe.

Which major current is formed from the westerlies in the Southern Hemisphere and flows in an uninterrupted circle around the circumference of the earth?

The circumpolar current merges the waters of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans and carries up to 150 times the volume of water flowing in all of the world’s rivers.

Where is the western boundary current?

Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream is a powerful western boundary current in the North Atlantic Ocean that strongly influences the climate of the East Coast of the United States and many Western European countries. Click the image for a larger view. One particularly powerful western boundary current is the Gulf Stream.

What is western intensification of ocean currents?

Figure 9.4.1 Western intensification. In both hemispheres, currents on the western side of the gyres travel through a much narrower area than the currents on the eastern side (yellow rectangles). To move the same volume of water through each side, western boundary currents are faster, deeper, and narrower than eastern boundary currents.

Why do ocean boundary currents move westward?

In fact, they are among the fastest surface currents in the ocean. One reason for the westward intensification of boundary currents has to do with the strengthening of the Coriolis effect with latitude. The Coriolis effect is stronger in the latitudes of the westerlies than in the latitudes of the trade winds.

What is meant by western intensification?

In both hemispheres, the currents making up the western side of the are much more intense than the currents on the eastern side. In other words, the currents off of the east coast of the continents are more intense than currents off of the west coast of the continents. This phenomenon is known as. western intensification.

What is the speed of the western boundary current?

This causes the poleward-flowing western boundary current to be a jetlike current that attains speeds of 2 to 4 metres (6.5 to 13 feet) per second. This current transports the excess heat of the low latitudes to higher latitudes. The flow within the equatorward-flowing interior and eastern boundary of the subtropical gyres is quite different.