Download 2. What three factors control surface currents?

Unit at a Glance
Chapter 14: Currents, Waves, and Tides
Standards
S6E3: Students will recognize the significant role of water in Earth's processes.
d. Explain the causes of waves, currents, and tides.
S6E4: Students will understand how the distribution of land and oceans affects
b. Relate unequal heating of land and water surfaces to form large global wind
systems and weather events such as tornados and thunderstorms.
c. Relate how moisture evaporating from the oceans affects weather patterns and
the weather events such as hurricanes.
Unit Vocabulary
Salinity: the measure of the amount of dissolved solids in a given amount of liquid.
Ocean Current: Any movement of ocean water that follows a regular pattern.
Surface Current: a horizontal movement of ocean water that is caused by wind and that
occurs at or near the ocean’s surface.
Deep Current: A streamlike movement of ocean water far below the surface of the ocean.
Longshore Current: A water current that travels near and parallel to the shoreline.
Upwelling: The movement of deep, cold, and nutrient-rich water to the surface of the ocean.
Undertow: A subsurface current that is near the shore and that pulls objects out to sea.
Coriolis Effect: The apparent curving of the path of a moving object from an otherwise straight
path due to the Earth’s rotation.
El Nino: change in the water temperature in the Pacific Ocean that produces a warm current.
La Nina: A change in the eastern Pacific ocean in which the surface temperature of the water
becomes unusually cool.
Storm Surge: A local rise in sea level near the shore that is caused by strong winds from a storm.
Tsunami: A Giant ocean wave that forms after a volcanic eruption, earthquake, or other
tectonic plate movement underneath the water.
Whitecap: The bubbles in the crest of a breaking wave.
Swell: One of a group of long ocean waves that have steadily travelled a great distance from
their point of generation.
Spring Tide: A tide of increased range that occurs two times a month.
Neap Tide: Tide of minimum range that occurs during the first and third quarters of the moon.
Tide: The periodic rise and fall of the water level in the oceans and other large bodies of water.
Unit at a Glance
Tidal Range: The difference in levels of ocean water and high and low tide.
Essential Questions
1. What are the two main types of currents?
2. What three factors control surface currents?
3. What three factors form deep currents?
4. How do currents affect climate?
5. What are the parts of a wave? What are the different types of waves?
6. What is the relationship between the position of the Earth, Sun, and Moon and the level of
the tide in the ocean?
7. What are the four types of tides?