Continental Slope Current

A continental slope current is a persistent along-slope flow that runs over the continental slope, frequently poleward, steered by the steep bathymetry and the planetary potential-vorticity constraint that holds flow along contours of constant f over H. Slope currents commonly form an undercurrent beneath an opposing surface flow, as with the poleward California Undercurrent and the European Slope Current along the eastern Atlantic margin. They transport heat, salt, and biota along ocean boundaries, exchange water with the shelf across the shelf break, and concentrate where density gradients and the slope create a trapped, topographically guided jet.