What is meant by Benguela Current?
Benguela Current, oceanic current that is a branch of the West Wind Drift of the Southern Hemisphere. It flows northward in the South Atlantic Ocean along the west coast of southern Africa nearly to the Equator before merging with the westward-flowing Atlantic South Equatorial Current.
How does the Benguela Current benefit South Africa?
Fisheries being roughly six times more productive than that of the North Sea, the Benguela Current supports an important global reservoir of biodiversity and biomass of zooplankton, fish, sea birds, and marine mammals, while nearshore and offshore sediments hold rich deposits of precious minerals (particularly diamonds …
How does the Benguela Current affect Africa?
The Benguela Current draws icy-cold waters from the Southern Ocean and carries them northward along the coast of Africa. Because of these cold waters, rain clouds do not develop over the southwest coast of Africa, contributing to the parched climate of the KALAHARI and Namib deserts.
How Benguela Current is different from Agulhas current?
The Agulhas Current is formed by the confluence of the warm Mozambique and East Madagascar Currents, which meet south-west of Madagascar (not shown in the diagram). The cold Benguela Current originates from upwelling of water from the cold depths of the Atlantic Ocean against the west coast of the continent.
Where is the Benguela Current?
Flowing along the coast of South Africa, Namibia, and Angola, the Benguela Current is the eastern boundary of a large gyre in the South Atlantic Ocean. The current mixes water from the Atlantic and Indian Oceans as they meet off the capes of South Africa.
How strong is the Benguela Current?
Wedepohl et al. (2000) found that the mean speeds of the current vary from <11 cm s-1 to a maximum of 23 cm s-1. Apparently the highest speeds occur in the south during summer and in the north during winter, a pattern that corresponds with seasonal wind fields.
Where does the Benguela Current flow?
Which country is affected by Benguela Current?
Abstract. Southwestern Africa is strongly affected by the Benguela Current, which is one of the world’s four major eastern boundary currents, influencing the coastal environments of western South Africa, Namibia and southern Angola.
Where does the Benguela Current start and end?
The Benguela Current /bɛŋˈɡɛlə/ is the broad, northward flowing ocean current that forms the eastern portion of the South Atlantic Ocean gyre. The current extends from roughly Cape Point in the south, to the position of the Angola-Benguela front in the north, at around 16°S.
Is the Benguela Current strong?
The Benguela current as represented by the Mariano Global Surface Velocity Analysis (MGSVA). The Benguela Current flows through a strong, biologically productive upwelling region, and advects cool waters to the tropics. This water is warmed and is one of the source waters for the South Equatorial Current.
Where does the Benguela Current originate from?
The Benguela Current is the eastern boundary current of the South Atlantic subtropical gyre (Peterson and Stramma 1991, Wedepohl et al. 2000). It begins as a northward flow off the Cape of Good Hope, where it skirts the western African coast equatorward until around 24°S-30°S.
What kind of water does Benguela Current take along explain?