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11: Wind-Driven Ocean Circulation

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    What drives the ocean currents? At first, we might answer, the winds. But if we think more carefully about the question, we might not be so sure. We might notice, for example, that strong currents, such as the North Equatorial Countercurrents in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean go upwind. Spanish navigators in the 16th century noticed strong northward currents along the Florida coast that seemed to be unrelated to the wind. How can this happen? And, why are strong currents found offshore of east coasts but not offshore of west coasts?

    Answers to the questions can be found in a series of three remarkable papers published from 1947 to 1951. In the first, Harald Sverdrup (1947) showed that the circulation in the upper kilometer or so of the ocean is directly related to the curl of the wind stress if the Coriolis force varies with latitude. Henry Stommel (1948) showed that the circulation in oceanic gyres is asymmetric also because the Coriolis force varies with latitude. Finally, Walter Munk (1950) added eddy viscosity and calculated the circulation of the upper layers of the Pacific. Together the three oceanographers laid the foundations for a modern theory of ocean circulation.

    This page titled 11: Wind-Driven Ocean Circulation is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Robert H. Stewart via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.