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Coastal upwelling is the best known type of upwelling, and the most closely related to human activities as it supports some of the most productive fisheries in the world. Coastal upwelling will occur if the wind direction is parallel to the coastline and generates wind-driven currents.
Coastal upwelling is the main factor contributing to the high biological productivity of the Humboldt current. [1] Upwelling within the current is not uniform across the entire system. Three notable upwelling subsystems are produced by this current:
Coastal upwelling often brings nutrient-rich water into eastern boundary current regions, making them productive areas of the ocean. Western boundary currents
Fronts are important in many aspects. Some frontal types, such as upwelling and convergence fronts, are sites of pronounced exchange between deep and surface ocean and can catalyse the generation of mesoscale eddies and submesoscale filaments. [3] Upwelling fronts can bring nutrients to the surface and lead to phytoplankton growth.
The winds drive surface water to the right of the wind flow, that is offshore, which draws water up from below to replace it. The upwelling further cools the already cool California Current. This is the mechanism that produces California's characteristic coastal fog and cool ocean waters. As a result, ocean surf temperatures are much colder ...
While upwelling promotes abundant primary and secondary production in the upper parts of the water column and near the coast, deeper waters with limited oxygen exchange create hypoxic areas called oxygen minimum zones at the coastal shelf and upper coastal slope. The Benguela oxygen minimum zone starts around a depth of 100 m and is a few ...
In shallow coastal waters, the Ekman spiral is normally not fully formed and the wind events that cause upwelling episodes are typically rather short. This leads to many variations in the extent of upwelling, but the ideas are still generally applicable.
Coastal upwelling occurs when the wind stress is directed with the coast on its left (right) in the Northern (Southern) Hemisphere. If so, Ekman transport is directed away from the coast forcing waters from below to move upward. Well known coastal upwelling areas are the Canary Current, the Benguela Current, the California Current, the Humboldt ...