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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (also Pacific trash vortex and North Pacific Garbage Patch [8]) is a garbage patch, a gyre of marine debris particles, in the central North Pacific Ocean. It is located roughly from 135°W to 155°W and 35°N to 42°N . [ 9 ]
The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG) is the largest contiguous ecosystem on earth. In oceanography, a subtropical gyre is a ring-like system of ocean currents rotating clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere caused by the Coriolis Effect. They generally form in large open ocean areas that lie ...
The flow turns north along the western coast of South America in the Humboldt Current, the eastern boundary current that completes the South Pacific Gyre circulation. Like the North Pacific Gyre, the South Pacific Gyre has an elevated concentration of plastic waste near the center, termed the South Pacific garbage patch.
The North Pacific is characterized by the general clockwise rotation of the North Pacific gyre, which is driven by trade winds. Spatial variations in tradewinds result in cooler air temperatures in the western North Pacific and milder air temperatures in the eastern North Pacific (i.e., Subarctic Pacific). [18]
Western intensification applies to the western arm of an oceanic current, particularly a large gyre in such a basin. The trade winds blow westward in the tropics. The westerlies blow eastward at mid-latitudes. This applies a stress to the ocean surface with a curl in north and south hemispheres, causing Sverdrup transport equatorward (toward ...
The North Pacific Gyre is a larger system that circulates warm water from the northern Pacific along the western U.S. coast and then west toward Asia, where it warms and helps create typhoons.
The current forms the southern part of the North Pacific Subpolar Gyre and the northern part of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. The North Pacific Current is formed by the collision of the Kuroshio Current, running northward off the coast of Japan, and the Oyashio Current, which is a cold subarctic current that flows south and circulates ...
Similar to the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic, the Kuroshio is a powerful western boundary current that transports warm equatorial water poleward and forms the western limb of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. Off the East Coast of Japan, it merges with the Oyashio Current to form the North Pacific Current.