what general patterns do wind and currents follow?

Answer 1

There are different patterns based on latitudinal sections of the atmosphere and the earth's rotation:

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Global Wind Patterns
The region of Earth receiving the Sun's direct rays is the equator. Here, air is heated and rises, leaving low pressure areas behind. Moving to about thirty degrees north and south of the equator, the warm air from the equator begins to cool and sink. Between thirty degrees latitude and the equator, most of the cooling sinking air moves back to the equator. The rest of the air flows toward the poles. The air movements toward the equator are called trade winds- warm, steady breezes that blow almost continuously. The Coriolis Effect makes the trade winds appear to be curving to the west, whether they are traveling to the equator from the south or north.
The trade winds coming from the south and the north meet near the equator. These converging trade winds produce general upward winds as they are heated, so there are no steady surface winds. This area of calm is called the doldrums.

Between thirty and sixty degrees latitude, the winds that move toward the poles appear to curve to the east. Because winds are named from the direction in which they originate, these winds are called prevailing westerlies. Prevailing westerlies in the Northern Hemisphere are responsible for many of the weather movements across the United States and Canada.

At about sixty degrees latitude in both hemispheres, the prevailing westerlies join with polar easterlies to reduce upward motion. The polar easterlies form when the atmosphere over the poles cools. This cool air then sinks and spreads over the surface. As the air flows away from the poles, it is turned to the west by the Coriolis effect. Again, because these winds begin in the east, they are called easterlies. Many of these changes in wind direction are hard to visualize. Complete this exercise to see the pattern of the winds.
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Ocean Currents

Ocean waters are constantly on the move. How they move influences climate and living conditions for plants and animals, even on land.

Currents flow in complex patterns affected by wind, the water's salinity and heat content, bottom topography, and the earth's rotation.
Dynamic Ocean Topography (952 kbyte mpeg)


Animation of two years of satellite-derived Dynamic Ocean Topography data from the Topex/Poseidon Mission

Upwelling brings cold, nutrient-rich water from the depths up to the surface. Earth's rotation and strong seasonal winds push surface water away from some western coasts, so water rises on the western edges of continents to replace it. Marine life thrives in these nutrient-rich waters §.

Deep water forms when sea water entering polar regions cools or freezes, becoming saltier and denser. Colder or saltier water tends to sink §.

A global "conveyor belt" set in motion when deep water forms in the North Atlantic, sinks, moves south, and circulates around Antarctica, and then moves northward to the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic basins. It can take a thousand years for water from the North Atlantic to find its way into the North Pacific §.

Warm surface currents invariably flow from the tropics to the higher latitudes, driven mainly by atmospheric winds, as well as the earth's rotation.

Western boundary currents are good examples of warm surface currents: they are warm and fast, and they move from tropical to temperate latitudes §.

Cold surface currents come from polar and temperate latitudes, and they tend to flow towards the equator. Like the warm surface currents, they are driven mainly by atmospheric forces §. Gyres form when the major ocean currents connect. Water flows in a circular pattern--clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere §.


The Gulf Stream surface current is a western boundary current, one of the strongest--warm, deep, fast, and relatively salty. It separates open-ocean water from coastal water.

U.S. WOCE (World Ocean Circulation Experiment) This animation depicts the variation of ocean temperature in the North Atlantic over a period of 1 year.
The California current is an eastern boundary current. It's broad, slow, cool, and shallow. Eastern boundary currents are often associated with upwelling.

The Somali current, off Africa's eastern coast, is unusual because it reverses direction twice a year. From May to September it runs north; from November to March it runs south. As it flows northward, upwelling supports productive marine life, but productivity falls when the current begins to move southward.


Upwelling stirs the soup and serves up a stew of nutrients that have settled into deep water. (illustration coming soon)
The ocean is layered: warmer on top, cold at the bottom. Organisms move from one layer to another, and plant and animal remains containing nutrients "rain" down, but the layers stay fairly separate in all but a few places.

Coastal upwelling occurs against the western sides of continents in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific. There, colder water rises to replace warm surface water blown out to sea by strong offshore winds. Upwelling supports about half of the world's fisheries, although these cool waters account for only 10 percent of the surface area of the global ocean §.
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Answer 2

Heat in water and the atmosphere rises. The wind gets sucked places from low pressure. It doesn't blow. In the USA the prevailing winds tend to move west to east. There is the jet stream which really pushes stuff around and can cause fairly dramatic changes in weather. One thing I find interesting is how hurricanes tend to be "born" off the coast of Africa and move across the Atlantic on a somewhat westerly course. I think that dust from the Sahara desert gets blown up into the upper atmosphere and contributes to the formation of these hurricanes. The other interesting phenomena is being in the "Doldrums". You don't want to be there on a ship with just sails. Check it out!

Answer 3

warm air tend to rise and cool air always go down from upper atmosphere.so the direction of air is influenced greatly by the temp. of the sorroundings or environment.

Answer 4

when the land is warm the winds usually move in.
when the lands start to get cold that is when they move outward