Scheme of surface currents


1. Find in the text an explanation of the causes of ocean currents. What general rule is the movement of the main currents subject to?

You already know that currents form in the seas and oceans, which are peculiar rivers in the ocean. If you compare a map showing the main directions of wind currents, with a map of ocean currents, you can identify some similarities in the direction of winds and currents. The conclusion you can make yourself.

2. Trace the course of the 0 ° C isotherm in the Northern Hemisphere and establish the role of warm and cold currents in the formation of the climate of the land. What effect do the currents have on the amount of precipitation falling over North America and Eurasia?

Having studied the map, one can see that the direction of flow is not spontaneous, but has a certain regularity.

The currents, as it were, rotate in a limited circle, transferring the warm waters far to the north and softening the winters there, and the cold

ones to the south, cooling the coasts of the continents. In the southern hemisphere warm currents spread to the south, then to the west, and the cold currents are directed north to the equator. After tracing the course of the 0 ° C isotherm in the Northern Hemisphere, you will see how the effect of warm currents is reflected in the middle temperatures of the continents.

Warm and cold currents influence not only the temperature of the coasts, but also the amount of precipitation.

Over the warm current, the air temperature is higher, and consequently, the process of evaporation of moisture takes place, which is then carried by the air masses to the land and falls out in the form of precipitation – rain or snow.

The effect of cold currents is the opposite. They lead to the fact that the sediments on the coasts do not fall out, and as a result of this, deserts are formed. Determine which deserts formed on the coasts of South America and Africa under the influence of the Peruvian and Benguela cold currents.


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Scheme of surface currents