Downwelling

"Downwell" redirects here. For the video game, see Downwell (video game).

Downwelling is the process of accumulation and sinking of higher density material beneath lower density material, such as cold or saline water beneath warmer or fresher water or cold air beneath warm air. It is the sinking limb of a convection cell. Upwelling is the opposite process and together these two forces are responsible in the oceans for the thermohaline circulation. The sinking of cold lithosphere at subduction zones is another example of downwelling in plate tectonics.

Oceanic downwelling

Downwelling occurs at anti-cyclonic places within the ocean where warm rings are spinning clockwise creating surface convergence. When these surface waters converge, they push the surface water downwards. Another way that downwelling can occur is by the wind driving the sea towards the coastline. Regions that have downwelling have low productivity because the nutrients in the water column are utilized but are not continuously resupplied by the cold, nutrient-rich water from below the surface.^[1]

Ventilation

Downwelling also allows for deep ocean ventilation to occur because these waters are able to bring dissolved oxygen down from the surface to help facilitate aerobic respiration in organisms throughout the water column. Without this renewal, the dissolved oxygen in the sediment and within the water column would be quickly used up by biological processes. In the instance of decay, anaerobic bacteria would take over decomposition, leading to a build-up of hydrogen sulfide. In these toxic conditions, there are very few benthic animals that would survive. In the most extreme cases, a lack of downwelling could possibly lead to mass extinction. Paleontologists have suggested that 250 million years ago, deep ocean ventilation slowed nearly to a halt, and the ocean became stagnant. Low oxygen, sulfide and methane-rich waters filled the deep ocean and progressed onto the continental shelves, wiping out 95% of all marine species in the greatest extinction event in Earth history, the Permian extinction.^[2]

Locations

Downwelling occurs in areas such as in the subpolar gyre of the North Atlantic where several surface currents meet. We also find downwelling along the outermost boundary of the Southern Ocean where cold Antarctic water sinks below warmer South Pacific and South Atlantic waters. There is also downwelling on a few coastlines where the wind blows in such a direction that it causes Ekman transport to move water towards the coast which then causes the water to pile up and be pushed down.^[3]

References

↑ "Ocean Motion : Definition : Wind Driven Surface Currents - Upwelling and Downwelling". Retrieved 12 March 2016.
↑ "NOAA Ocean Explorer: Education - Multimedia Discovery Missions - Lesson 8 - Ocean Currents - Activities: Currents and Marine Life". Retrieved 12 March 2016.
↑ "G115 - Introduction to Oceanography". Retrieved 12 March 2016.

External links

Wind Driven Surface Currents: Upwelling and Downwelling

Physical oceanography

Waves	Airy wave theory Ballantine scale Benjamin–Feir instability Boussinesq approximation Breaking wave Clapotis Cnoidal wave Cross sea Dispersion Edge wave Equatorial waves Fetch Gravity wave Infragravity wave Internal wave Kelvin wave Kinematic wave Longshore drift Luke's variational principle Mild-slope equation Radiation stress Rogue wave Rossby wave Rossby-gravity waves Sea state Seiche Significant wave height Sneaker wave Soliton Stokes boundary layer Stokes drift Stokes wave Swell Trochoidal wave Tsunami megatsunami Undertow Ursell number Wave action Wave base Wave height Wave power Wave radar Wave setup Wave shoaling Wave turbulence Wave–current interaction Waves and shallow water one-dimensional Saint-Venant equation shallow water equations Wind wave model

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