Ocean Influences And Currents Flashcards
What do oceans do to influence weather, and in turn climate?
Create humidity + clouds
Absorbs 71% of suns radiation
Move energy through gyres
Absorbs carbon
Produces 50% of the worlds oxygen
How does the ocean determine the climate
By storing vast amounts of solar heat and distributing it through currents and accompanying atmospheric winds
The greenhouse effect
Land areas heat up quickly during the day nd cool rapidly at night, radiating much of there energy back go space, but atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide retain the radiation that warms the atmosphere
Why does water hold more heat and reflect less
It has a higher heat capacity, or holds more heat per unit of volume compared to air and land.
How does the oceans heat capacity affect our environment
The insulating effect gives coastal areas a more moderate rang of temperatures in inland areas have at the same latitude
What’s fuels the atmospheres circulation?
The suns energy in the form of heat
Earths rotation and atmospheric causes what to happen in the northern and Southern Hemisphere
In the northern hemisphere atmospheric winds deflect to the right and in the Southern Hemisphere they deflect to the left
The circulation of the oceans mirrors what?
The movements of the atmosphere
Gyres
Surface currents driven by atmospheric winds move warm equatorial waters to the poles and vice versa, setting up circular patterns
The Gulf Stream
Current transporting more than 100x the outflow of all the worlds rivers as it moves from cuba to Newfoundland. It greatly moderates the costal European climate.
Kuroshio current
Moves from the Phillipines northwards past Taiwan and Japan.
What do mountain ranges do
Towering mountain ranges along the west coast of North America confine the effects of the currents waters to relatively small areas
Linear speed equation
Distance / Time
As one moves away from the equator, the linear speed will:
Decrease/move slower because of the Coriolis effect
Coriolis effect
Because the Earth rotates on its axis, circulating air is deflected toward the right in the Northern Hemisphere and toward the left in the Southern Hemisphere. This deflection is called the Coriolis effect.
