Sea Kayaking by John Dowd

Author:John Dowd
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781771641449
Publisher: Greystone Books
Published: 2015-02-22T16:00:00+00:00

OCEAN CURRENTS

The ocean currents are like great eddies between the continents. They rotate clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, driven by the spin of the earth and the force of the winds. They not only have a profound effect not only on tidal flow, but also on climate and weather. The relative warmth of the Japan Current, for example, is respon­sible for the mildness of the sea-level temperatures in southeastern Alaska. Currents such as the Gulf Stream off Florida or the Kuroshio Current off Japan may exceed 4 knots, throwing up dangerous seas when opposed by a strong wind. In the West Indies, the North Equatorial Current sieves through the narrow channels of the Windward and Leeward Islands and into the Caribbean, sometimes running in excess of 3 knots and creating a major navigational problem for craft as limited in speed as a kayak.

In the Mediterranean, a current of quite different origin exists. Rapid evaporation of surface water increases salinity, and the denser solution sinks, setting up a deep flow into the Atlantic through the Strait of Gibraltar. The inflow from rivers is not sufficient to compensate for this outflow, and as a result, a steady surface flow of Atlantic water runs eastward over the top of the deep westward outflow, sweeping the coasts of North Africa and Southern Europe. The entire Mediterranean is said to be flushed through in this manner every seventy-five years.

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