Which ocean current is driven by powerful westerly winds north of Antarctica and is the largest ocean current, continuing permanently eastward?

Which ocean current is driven by powerful westerly winds north of Antarctica and is the largest ocean current, continuing permanently eastward?

• A. Canary Current
• B. Antarctic Circumpolar Current (West Wind Drift)
• C. Coastal Upwelling
• D. Eddy

Answer: (B)

Westerly winds in the Southern Ocean push surface water around Antarctica, creating a current that circles the globe. This is the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, also known as the West Wind Drift. It flows continually eastward and is the largest ocean current by the volume it moves because there are no landmasses to break it, so it connects the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans in one unbroken belt. This current also plays a key role in transporting heat and linking global ocean circulation. The other options don’t fit this description: the Canary Current is a cooler, westward-flowing current off Northwest Africa driven by trade winds; coastal upwelling is a coastal process that draws deep water to the surface rather than a large, uninterrupted global current; eddies are smaller, circular pockets of water rather than a vast, continuous current.

Westerly winds in the Southern Ocean push surface water around Antarctica, creating a current that circles the globe. This is the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, also known as the West Wind Drift. It flows continually eastward and is the largest ocean current by the volume it moves because there are no landmasses to break it, so it connects the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans in one unbroken belt. This current also plays a key role in transporting heat and linking global ocean circulation.

The other options don’t fit this description: the Canary Current is a cooler, westward-flowing current off Northwest Africa driven by trade winds; coastal upwelling is a coastal process that draws deep water to the surface rather than a large, uninterrupted global current; eddies are smaller, circular pockets of water rather than a vast, continuous current.