Coastal Upwelling Revisited: Ekman, Bakun, and Improved Upwelling Indices for the U.S. West Coast Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans

Coastal upwelling is responsible for thriving marine ecosystems and fisheries that are disproportionately productive relative to their surface area, particularly in the world ’s major eastern boundary upwelling systems. Along oceanic eastern boundaries, equatorward wind stress and the Earth ’s rotation combine to drive a near-surface layer of water offshore, a process called Ekman transport . Similarly, positive wind stress curl drives divergence in the surface Ekman layer and consequently upwelling from below, a process known as Ekman suction . In both cases, displaced water is replaced by upwelling of relatively nutrient-rich water from below, which stimulates the growth of microscopic phytoplankton that form the