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Currents

Currents. What is a current? Are there different types of currents? What causes currents? Why are currents important? What are some major currents?. Cool Current Facts. The Gulf Stream current transports ten-thousand times as much water as the Mississippi river.

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Currents

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  1. Currents • What is a current? • Are there different types of currents? • What causes currents? • Why are currents important? • What are some major currents?

  2. Cool Current Facts • The Gulf Stream current transports ten-thousand times as much water as the Mississippi river. • The Gulf Stream flows as fast as 2m/sec or about 4 miles per hour. • If caught in this current you could be carried almost a hundred miles in one day.

  3. What is a Current? • A current is defined as a large mass of continuously moving ocean water.

  4. What Causes Currents • Wind • Density (salinity/temperature) • Topography (coasts) • Coriolis effect (earth’s rotation)

  5. Coriolis Effect • The rotation of the earth causes moving objects to veer to the right in the northern hemisphere, to the left in the southern hemisphere. • Objects near the equator are moving much faster than objects near the poles.

  6. Coriolis Effect

  7. Types of Currents • Surface (wind driven) • Deep (density driven) • Vertical (wind/density driven)

  8. Surface Currents • Most visible current • Occur in the top 1 km of the ocean • Produced by wind and redirected by land and the Coriolis effect • This Results in a large circular rotation called a Gyre

  9. Gyre

  10. Create a Current Map • Label the continents • Label the oceans • Using your knowledge of surface currents determine and label where the five major Gyres and one circumpolar current are located. • Use arrows to show the direction of flow. • Label the major currents.

  11. Major Currents • California Current • Kuroshio Current • North and South Equatorial Current • West Wind Drift • Gulf Stream • Peru Current

  12. Global Currents

  13. Thanks to: Images: http://www.onr.navy.mil/focus/ocean/motion/currents1.htm http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/coriolis_effect.html www.jimloy.com/science/ shower.htm www.ldeo.columbia.edu/ ~jean/research.html Information: http://www.onr.navy.mil/focus/ocean/motion/currents1.htm http://fermi.jhuapl.edu/student/phillips/ http://www.whoi.edu/coastal-briefs/Coastal-Brief-94-05.html http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/oceanography_currents_1.html http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/coriolis_effect.html

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