What is Western intensification quizlet?

What is Western intensification quizlet?

Western intensification causes: -Steeper slope of surface water in the section of the gyre as compared to the eastern section of the gyre. -Very swift western boundary currents. -A large volume of water within western boundary currents.

Which currents are Western intensified?

Sub-tropical western boundary currents are warm, deep, narrow, and fast-flowing currents that form on the west side of ocean basins due to western intensification. They carry warm water from the tropics poleward. Examples include the Gulf Stream, the Agulhas Current, and the Kuroshio Current.

What is the western boundary?

The Kuroshio is the western boundary current of the North Pacific subtropical gyre and invites comparison with its Atlantic homologue, the Gulf Stream.

Which of the following is a western boundary current?

Western boundary currents (at the western edge of an ocean basin) include the Gulf Stream, the Kuroshio Current, and Brazil Current., Eastern boundary currents (at the eastern edge of an ocean basin) include the California Current, the Canary Current, and the Peru Current. 7.

What causes deep ocean current?

These deep-ocean currents are driven by differences in the water’s density, which is controlled by temperature (thermo) and salinity (haline). This process is known as thermohaline circulation. In the Earth’s polar regions ocean water gets very cold, forming sea ice.

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.

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 is meant by westward intensification and explain the reason why it occurs?

Why western boundary currents are stronger?

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 are western and eastern boundary currents?

Where are western boundary currents located?

Western boundary currents are strong and narrow currents confined to the western sides of ocean basins. In the North Atlantic, the Gulf Stream is the western boundary current of the anticyclonic subtropical gyre and the North Atlantic Current (NAC) is its northeastward extension (Arhan, 1990; Rossby, 1996).

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