California Currentとは 意味・読み方・使い方

The California Current is a Pacific Ocean current that moves south along the western coast of North America, beginning off southern British Columbia, and ending off southern Baja California. There are five major coastal currents affiliated with upwelling zones. These are the California Current (located off the coast of Oregon and California), the Humboldt Current (located off the coast of Chile and Peru), the Canary Current (located off the coast of northwest Africa), the Benguela Current (located off the coast of southwest Africa), and the Somali Current (located in the western Indian Ocean) (Mann and Lazier, 2006). The five major coastal currents are parts of the global ocean gyre system and as such, these currents are driven by wind and deflected by landmasses. Each of the major ocean basins has both a western boundary current and an eastern boundary current. The western boundary currents tend to be deep and fast and the eastern boundary currents are mainly shallow, broad, and less-defined (Mann and Lazier, 2006). The California Current is an Eastern boundary current and is part of the North Pacific Gyre, a large swirling current that occupies the northern basin of the Pacific. The movement of northern waters southward makes the coastal waters cooler than the coastal areas of comparable latitude on the east coast of the United States. Additionally, extensive upwelling of colder sub-surface waters occurs, caused by the prevailing northeasterly winds acting through the Ekman Effect. 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 the negative temperature anomaly we measure in California's coastal waters during summer (Mann and Lazier, 2006). This translates into cold coastal waters during the summer, stretching from Oregon to Baja California. Note, this does not include the coastal water surrounding San Diego. There is a warm water anomaly off San Diego (Mann and Lazier, 2006).