Corioles Effect Essay

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Ambereen Alvi Geo 102 Extra Credit Ocean Currents Ocean Currents: How They are Made and Work What is an Ocean Current? And what does it have to do with you? Ocean curents are the continuos, direct movement of ocean water generated by forces upon the ocean. This can depend on things we can experience directly like wind, temperature, and water density, and also those things a little less obvious like the rotation and mass of our earth. Together these things work to create ocean currents that help in the overall vitality on our earth dynamic surface. Wind is one of the largest indicators for ocean currents. It works by circulating differential heating around the world helped by our equators warm belt, our poles cold points, and the Corialis effect. The Corioles effect is the deflection of moving objects when they are viewed in a rotating reference frame. Our rotating reference frame is the earth, and its large mass and slow rotations the force is quite small. But because of this flowing winds and currents move clockwise from their direction to the north of the equator and counterclockwise to the south (it is also why you will never find two toilets that flows in the same direction from different hemispheres. By creating a similarity in flow wind patterns begin to emerge, and so do the beginnings of ocean currents. But lets look at the place where wind and ocean meet, the oceans surface. From this point we can take a better examination on how the Corioles forms ocean currents. Traveling across the oceans surface wind takes with it a depth to which it can penetrate the surface layer, this is called Ekman transport. In congruence with the Corioles effect and drag wind helps make the water of depths of 10-20 meters deep flow at a 45 degree angle to the wind. This is a very difficult process to see, but satellite images can show many cyclones over the oceans

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