upwelling

[ uhp-wel-ing ]

noun

1. an act or instance of welling up:

   an upwelling of public support; an upwelling of emotion in his voice.

2. Oceanography. the process by which warm, less-dense surface water is drawn away from along a shore by offshore currents and replaced by cold, denser water brought up from the subsurface.

upwelling

/ ŭp-wĕl′ĭng /

1. The rising of cold, usually nutrient-rich waters from the ocean depths to the warmer, sunlit zone at the surface. Upwelling usually occurs in the subtropics along the western continental coasts, where prevailing trade winds drive the surface water away from shore, drawing deeper water upward to take its place. Because of the abundance of krill and other nutrients in the colder waters, these regions are rich feeding grounds for a variety of marine and avian species. Upwelling can also occur in the middle of oceans where cyclonic circulation is relatively permanent or where southern trade winds cross the Equator.

Word History and Origins

Origin of upwelling¹

First recorded in 1850–55; upwell + -ing ¹

Example Sentences

It started riding on ocean upwellings to feed on krill and zooplankton, casting off part of its bottom-dweller status.

From Popular-Science

Because tectonic plates are pulling apart there, there’s no resistance to upwelling of hot rock from deep in the mantle.

From Science News

If we didn’t have the ocean circulation or upwelling, you wouldn’t have fish.

From MIT Technology Review

Another big question is how convection in the mantle—the upwelling of hot rock—is affecting the crustal blocks’ motion on Venus.

From Popular-Science

It just happens that our latest offering is being released at the time of a terrible upwelling of violence.

From Washington Blade

Sorrow in her was aroused by many a spectacle—an uncritical upwelling of grief for the weak and the helpless.

From Project Gutenberg

For that very reason he feels as never before a great upwelling of affection for all things around him, animate and inanimate.

From Project Gutenberg

"I'll have to tell him something," she thought with a sudden upwelling of feeling as regarded the seriousness of this duty.

From Project Gutenberg

But the mood passed away before a fresh upwelling of concrete resentment against the self-pampered pair at the Promenade window.

From Project Gutenberg

But the hollowness of Cally's speech had mocked the sudden sympathy upwelling within her.

From Project Gutenberg