What Currents Are Influenced by the Coriolis Effect?

How it Works

• Warm air at the Earth's equator rises and flows toward the North Pole. As it flows north away from the equator, the force created by the Coriolis effect pushes the air toward the right. As the air flows northeast and reaches 30 degrees north latitude it cools off, which causes it to descend in the atmosphere and begin to flow south back toward the equator. In the Southern Hemisphere the air current is pushed to the left, moving the air flow southwest until it descends to 30 degrees south latitude and starts to flow north back to the equator.

Ocean Currents

• When the Coriolis effect pushes the northern hemisphere winds to the right and the southern hemisphere winds to the left, the wind currents it affects push the surface water of the oceans in the same direction that they are blowing. This is why the northern hemisphere ocean current moves in a clockwise or easterly spiral from continent to continent, while the southern hemisphere moves in a counterclockwise or westerly spiral from continent to continent.

Gyres

• The large ocean currents are caused by the Coriolis effect curving the main air currents, which in turn moves the water and causes it to circulate in large currents called gyres. Gyres occur in the oceans that are located to the north and and south of the equator. There are five oceanwide gyres. They are located in the North Atlantic, the South Atlantic, the North Pacific, the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

Gulf Stream

• The Gulf Stream or the North Atlantic Drift is a major ocean current caused by the Coriolis effect that moves west across the Atlantic. The Gulf Stream starts its cycle at the Gulf of Mexico, where it flows through the Straits of Florida, up the eastern United States coastline and then extends north and east over toward Europe before returning back to the Gulf.