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Temperature differences can cause air currents because warmer air is less dense than cooler air, causing the warmer air to appear "lighter." Thus, if the warm air is under the cool air, air currents will form as they exchange places. Air currents are caused because of the uneven heating of Earth's surface. [5] [6]
A Wind generated current is a flow in a body of water that is generated by wind friction on its surface. Wind can generate surface currents on water bodies of any size. The depth and strength of the current depend on the wind strength and duration, and on friction and viscosity losses, [1] but are limited to about 400 m depth by the mechanism, and to lesser depths where the water is shallower. [2]
In meteorology, prevailing wind in a region of the Earth's surface is a surface wind that blows predominantly from a particular direction. The dominant winds are the trends in direction of wind with the highest speed over a particular point on the Earth's surface at any given time.
Knowing the wind sampling average is important, as the value of a one-minute sustained wind is typically 14% greater than a ten-minute sustained wind. [16] A short burst of high speed wind is termed a wind gust ; one technical definition of a wind gust is: the maxima that exceed the lowest wind speed measured during a ten-minute time interval ...
The wind belts girdling the planet are organised into three cells in each hemisphere—the Hadley cell, the Ferrel cell, and the polar cell. Those cells exist in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The vast bulk of the atmospheric motion occurs in the Hadley cell.
These western ocean currents transport warm, tropical water polewards toward the polar regions. Ships crossing both oceans have taken advantage of the ocean currents for centuries. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), or the West Wind Drift, is an ocean current that flows from west to east around Antarctica.
Buran (a wind which blows across eastern Asia. It is also known as Purga when over the tundra); Karakaze (strong cold mountain wind from Gunma Prefecture in Japan); East Asian Monsoon, known in China and Taiwan as meiyu (梅雨), in Korea as jangma (), and in Japan as tsuyu (梅雨) when advancing northwards in the spring and shurin (秋霖) when retreating southwards in autumn.
In oceanography wind fetch, also known as fetch length or simply fetch, is the length of water over which a given wind has blown without obstruction. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Fetch is used in geography and meteorology and its effects are usually associated with sea state and when it reaches shore it is the main factor that creates storm surge which leads to ...