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The California Current (Spanish: Corriente de California) is a cold water Pacific Ocean current that moves southward along the western coast of North America, beginning off southern British Columbia and ending off southern Baja California Sur. It is considered an Eastern boundary current due to the influence of the North American coastline on ...
The North Pacific Current flows east, eventually bifurcating near the west coast of North America into the northward flowing Alaska Current and the southward flowing California Current. [17] The Alaska Current is the eastern boundary current of the subpolar Alaska Gyre, [ 18 ] while the California Current is the eastern boundary current that ...
Western intensification applies to the western arm of an oceanic current, particularly a large gyre in such a basin. The trade winds blow westward in the tropics. The westerlies blow eastward at mid-latitudes. This applies a stress to the ocean surface with a curl in north and south hemispheres, causing Sverdrup transport equatorward (toward ...
The NEC in the Pacific and the Atlantic is about 5°-20°N, while the NEC in the Indian Ocean is very close to the equator. It ranges from the sea surface down to 400 m in the western Pacific. [1] North Equatorial Current (in black labeled N. Equatorial) The NEC is driven by the north-hemisphere easterly trade wind.
There are three major wind patterns that lead to Ekman suction or pumping. The first are wind patterns that are parallel to the coastline. [1] Due to the Coriolis effect, surface water moves at a 90° angle to the wind current. If the wind moves in a direction causing the water to be pulled away from the coast then Ekman suction will occur. [1]
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Once calculated the radial velocity of currents, distance to target, and the angular direction to target it is possible to determine the current vector and to construct current vector maps. In fact, for the area in which vector data from two CODAR sites overlap, it is possible to calculate the velocity and direction of the current and ...
This is associated with a decrease in the speed of current; eastward directed speeds at the surface are typically less than 0.05 m/s (5 cm/s) in the central Pacific. As the NPC approaches the west coast of North America, it divides into two broad currents: the northward flowing Alaska Current and the southward flowing California Current.