Wind & Ocean Currents?

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Do wind and ocean currents follow the same pattern? I know that Earth's wind and ocean currents move clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern, but does the wind follow the ocean current (or vice-versa), or do they act independently?

 

[kyloss]

Do wind and ocean currents follow the same pattern? I know that Earth's wind and ocean currents move clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern, but does the wind follow the ocean current (or vice-versa), or do they act independently?

Actually the currents dont move clockwise- you thinking of draining water. for example the trans atlantic current that keeps Northern Europe warm has a counter clockwise flow. while the humboldt current off of South America has a clockwise flow. As for the air currents they dont match the water currents they run in bands alternating east and west with areas of relative calm sometimes called the doldrums in between, this is where you find sargaso sees and the like, You do get some minor surface currents following the wind but nothing like the actual ocean currents, On a related but totaly tangental subject when you have cold water currents cross an airstream it tends to cause them to rain out all their moisture creating desserts on the ther side of the intersection, like the Atacama desert(driest in the world), and crossing a warm current adds moisture and creates areas of heavy rainfall(think seatle)

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Actually the currents dont move clockwise- you thinking of draining water.

Actually, I just read that from the 2E World Builder's Guidebook, which seemed (to me at least) to be pretty accurate with weather patterns. Maybe it isn't...

 

[DMH]

Actually the currents dont move clockwise- you thinking of draining water. for example the trans atlantic current that keeps Northern Europe warm has a counter clockwise flow.

So clocks run backwards in Texas? The flow runs up the Eastern seaboard of the US until it reaches CT or so and then heads NE towards the UK.

 

[Snapdragyn]

while the humboldt current off of South America has a clockwise flow.

The Humboldt Current flows north up the western coast of South America -- therefore, the flow is counterclockwise.

crossing a warm current adds moisture and creates areas of heavy rainfall(think seatle)

I'm not sure how a current flowing down the western coast of North America from Alaska would be considered 'warm'. Even as far south of Seattle as San Francisco, the water temperature is cool enough to induce hypothermia.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

If you're looking to create a world and are trying to figure out the currents and such, I heartily recommend the Magical Medieval Society: Ecology and Culture book. Custom made for that sort of thing. It has a really nice section on geography that has enough detail to achieve a nice level of realism without bogging down and reading like a science textbook.

 

[Warehouse23]

The net transport of surface waters actually tends to be orthogonal (at 90 degrees) to the direction of the prevailing winds. This results from a special case of the Coriolis effect called a "Nansen spiral" (the Coriolis force works in all three dimensions, including "down," which is not something I recommend thinking about unless you want a headache). The result, broadly, are zones of convergance of surface waters and downwelling wherever winds blow in opposite directions, and divergance where they blow in the same direction (such as the trades along either side of the equator).

Geostropic currents, which are the large-scale cyclical currents in the oceans generally run clockwise in the northern hemisphere and anticlockwise in the southern hemisphere. Local currents are largely determined by sources of fresh water (e.g., rivers) and local topography (sea canyons, sea mounts, continental shelves, etc.)

If you post an image of your world map on line, it would be easy enough to plot the general wind and ocean current vectors.

 

[John Morrow]

Do wind and ocean currents follow the same pattern? I know that Earth's wind and ocean currents move clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern, but does the wind follow the ocean current (or vice-versa), or do they act independently?

You might find this page useful:

http://earth.usc.edu/~stott/Catalina/Oceans.html

 

[John Morrow]

I'm not sure how a current flowing down the western coast of North America from Alaska would be considered 'warm'. Even as far south of Seattle as San Francisco, the water temperature is cool enough to induce hypothermia.

Basically, it's a heck of a lot warmer than it would be if it weren't carrying heat from Southeast Asia up past Japan into the Arctic in the first place and a heck of a lot warmer than the air in the arctic. That heat gets lost to the air passing over the water, which warms and moderates the temperature on the West Coast, much as the Gulf Stream warms Europe. While 50 degrees might not sound warm, it will warm colder air. The Northeastern United States, on the other hand, primarily gets its air from across the pole and Canada blowing east so the Gulf Stream doesn't moderate the temperature. As a result, the winters are a lot colder in the Midwest and Northeast than in the Pacific Northwest without that "cold" water to warm the even colder air.

 

[kyloss]

I stand corrected and humbled, I do apologize it has been about 5 years since I took the class, I was remebering the northernbranch of the transatlantic that warms norway and cools greenland, I remebered it going all the way down the east coast,.