“An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of sea water generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences.
What is the cause of ocean currents?
Ocean currents can be caused by wind, density differences in water masses caused by temperature and salinity variations, gravity, and events such as earthquakes or storms. Currents are cohesive streams of seawater that circulate through the ocean.
Are currents caused by waves?
Coastal currents are intricately tied to winds, waves, and land formations. Winds that blow along the shoreline—longshore winds—affect waves and, therefore, currents.
What causes currents and waves?
At the surface, currents are mainly driven by four factors—wind, the Sun’s radiation, gravity, and Earth’s rotation. All of these factors are interconnected. The Sun’s radiation creates prevailing wind patterns, which push ocean water to bunch in hills and valleys.
What causes ocean currents quizlet?
A directional movement of ocean water; surface currents result from steady winds over the ocean surface; deep ocean currents result from density variations due to temperature and salinity differences.
What is the difference between a current and a wave?
Waves are said to be the wind the moves across the water surface, tides are the rise and fall in the water level of the sea where on the other hand, currents are just the direction in which the water flows of the water body.
What is the difference between ocean currents and waves?
Ocean currents are the continuous flow of huge amount of water in a definite direction while the waves are the horizontal motion of water. Water moves ahead from one place to another through ocean currents while the water in the waves does not move, but the wave trains move ahead.
What do you mean by ocean currents?
Ocean currents are the continuous, predictable, directional movement of seawater driven by gravity, wind (Coriolis Effect), and water density. Ocean water moves in two directions: horizontally and vertically. Horizontal movements are referred to as currents, while vertical changes are called upwellings or downwellings.
What are ocean currents answer?
An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of sea water generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences.
What is the difference between a current and a tide?
Tides go up and down; currents move left and right.
Tides are characterized by water moving up and down over a long period of time. When used in association with water, the term “current” describes the motion of the water. Oceanic currents are driven by several factors. One is the rise and fall of the tides.
What causes ocean surface waves quizlet?
Wind blowing across the surface of the ocean is the major mechanism that generates most ocean surface waves. Most ocean waves form as a result of: winds blowing across the ocean surface.
What causes currents quizlet?
Terms in this set (13)
ocean currents that occur at or near the surface of the ocean, caused by wind. affected by 3 factors; continental deflections, the coriolis effect, and global winds. when surface currents meet continents, the currents are deflected and change direction.
What causes surface currents quizlet?
What causes surface currents to move? It is caused by wind action, Earth’s spin, and the shape of the continents. Also, the speed, direction, and volume of water can be affected by the uneven heating of the atmosphere. The force of wind blowing over the top of the Earth.
How are waves formed in the ocean?
Waves are most commonly caused by wind. Wind-driven waves, or surface waves, are created by the friction between wind and surface water. As wind blows across the surface of the ocean or a lake, the continual disturbance creates a wave crest.
What is the relationship between ocean waves and the natural ocean currents?
Waves for example are influenced by the action of wind on the surface of the ocean while currents are influenced by the heat from the sun on the equator and cooler poles. Tides on the other hand are caused by gravitational forces from the moon and sun.
What are 3 types of ocean currents?
Types of Ocean Currents
- Horizontal Currents. Surface Currents.
- Vertical Currents.
- Solar heating. it causes water to expand.
- Wind. The Wind is responsible for ocean currents as it blows the water on the surface, causing the currents.
- Gravity.
- The salinity of the water.
- Temperature.
- Coriolis effect.
How do currents affect waves?
As the surface currents affect the spectral wave energy, the bottom friction will also experience change. Bottom friction will increase with increasing wave energy e.g. in the case of an opposite current.
How are ocean currents formed Class 7?
Ocean currents are streams of water flowing constantly on the ocean’s surface in definite directions. They are caused by differences in the temperature and salinity of water, by wind, solar heating and gravity. The winds majorly responsible for creating ocean currents are the Westerlies and the Trade winds.
What are ocean currents 7 geography?
(vi) What are ocean currents? Answer: The streams of water flowing constantly on the ocean surface in a definite direction are called ocean currents. The ocean currents may be warm or cold.
What are ocean currents Name two types of ocean currents?
There are two main types of ocean currents: currents driven mainly by wind and currents mainly driven by density differences.
Which of the following is an ocean current?
The correct answer is Agulhas current.
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