This also gives the expected shape of the Ekman spiral, both in magnitude and direction.

This is related to the Ekman spiral effect.

Ekman spirals are also found in the atmosphere.

The diagram above attempts to show the forces associated with the Ekman spiral as applied to the Northern hemisphere.

The classic Ekman spiral has been observed under sea ice, but observations remain rare in open-ocean conditions.

Because the Ekman Spiral effects spread vertically through the water, the effect is inversely proportional to depth.

Strong surface winds cause surface currents perpendicular to the wind direction, by an effect known as the Ekman Spiral.

This variation of horizontal velocity with depth () is referred to as the Ekman spiral, diagrammed above.

The depth to which the Ekman spiral penetrates is determined by how far turbulent mixing can penetrate over the course of a pendulum day.

In wind driven currents, the Ekman spiral effect results in the currents flowing at an angle to the driving winds.

The Ekman layer, with its distinguishing feature the Ekman spiral, is rarely observed in the ocean.

The Ekman Spiral works as follows: when the surface moves, the subsurface inherits some -but not all- of this motion.

Note that when vertically integrated the volume transport associated with the Ekman spiral is to the right of the wind direction in the Northern Hemisphere.

The first documented observations of an oceanic Ekman spiral were made in the Arctic Ocean from a drifting ice flow in 1958.

This wind stress creates seasonal Ekman spiral pumping and displaces nutrient-poor coastal surface water with cool, nutrient rich, water masses.

Note that stresses will not be in the direction of the winds or currents, but rather will be shifted by coriolis effects-see, for instance, Ekman spiral.

The Ekman Spiral, named after Vagn Walfrid Ekman, is the standard for this transfer of energy.

The Ekman spiral refers to a structure of currents or winds near a horizontal boundary in which the flow direction rotates as one moves away from the boundary.

In 1905 he had supplied the Swedish physicist Walfrid Ekman with the data which established the principle in oceanography known as the Ekman spiral.

The result is a net movement of surface water at right angles to the direction of the wind, known as the Ekman transport (See also Ekman Spiral).

It is important to remember that in shallow coastal waters, the Ekman spiral is normally not fully formed and the wind events that cause upwelling episodes are typically rather short.

The measurements from the Fram were, in fact, used by Vagn Walfrid Ekman to develop the theory of the turning of surface flow with friction (the Ekman spiral).

This is due both to the fact that the turbulent mixing in the surface layer of the ocean has a strong diurnal cycle and to the fact that surface waves can destabilize the Ekman spiral.

For example, in the northern Hemisphere, when winds blow either equatorward along an eastern ocean boundary or poleward along a western ocean boundary, surface waters are driven away from the coasts (Ekman transport or Ekman spiral) and replaced by denser waters from below.

This surface flow then modifies the flow slightly beneath it, which then is slightly more to the right, and finally the exponentially-weaker-with-depth flow vectors get weaker with depth (exponentially weaker), die down at around 50-100 meters, and finally form a spiral, called the Ekman spiral.