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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.
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. [19]
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:
Near coastal zones, winds blowing parallel to the coast can generate wind-driven currents that create an Ekman transport away from the coast. [21] This moves the upper water mass away from the coast and leads to upwelling of cooler water from depth, [9] also termed coastal upwelling.
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 in ...
Upwelling behavior: One of the unique characteristics of the Somali Current is the presence of strong coastal upwelling - the only major instance of this happening at a western ocean boundary. Following Ekman transport and with the southwest monsoon blowing parallel to the Somali coastline, the upwelling direction is to the offshore during the ...
A marine coastal ecosystem is a marine ecosystem which occurs where the land meets the ocean. Worldwide there is about 620,000 kilometres (390,000 mi) of coastline. Coastal habitats extend to the margins of the continental shelves, occupying about 7 percent of the ocean surface area.
These changes can be connected to the transport of heat, salt, and nutrients through the ocean, and the pycnocline diffusion controls upwelling. [1] Below the mixed layer, a stable density gradient (or pycnocline) separates the upper and lower water, hindering vertical transport. [2]