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

But upwelling of seawater seems to be a common factor — and strong upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water is currently hugging the Central California coastline.

From Los Angeles Times

“One of the things that has come out again and again in a lot of our studies... is that, yes, when you get upwelling — which is typified by colder water temperatures and lots of nutrients — you will stimulate a bloom of diatoms,” said Clarissa Anderson, director of Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System and the Cooperative Institute for Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Systems, which are operated out of UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

From Los Angeles Times

“One of the things we have seen in our years and years and years of data is that it’s the mixture of nutrients that come with upwelling that is potentially responsible for turning the toxin on or off,” she said.

From Los Angeles Times

“And that mixture of nutrients may be impacted by global climate change, because climate change is changing ocean circulation physics at the basin scale — like the Pacific Ocean scale — and that can have ramification on what kinds of water — the flavor of water — that is upwelling onto the coast in California.”

From Los Angeles Times

“So you get a pulse of upwelling, which brought some cool water with even more nutrients to the surface, and then everything warmed up. That’s just absolutely perfect conditions for a bloom like this,” he said.

From Los Angeles Times