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The Indian Ocean Gyre, located in the Indian Ocean, is, like the South Atlantic Gyre, bordered by the Intertropical Convergence Zone in the north and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to the south. The South Equatorial Current forms the northern boundary of the Indian Ocean Gyre as it flows west along the equator towards the east coast of Africa.
A geostrophic current may also be thought of as a rotating shallow water wave with a frequency of zero. The principle of geostrophy or geostrophic balance is useful to oceanographers because it allows them to infer ocean currents from measurements of the sea surface height (by combined satellite altimetry and gravimetry ) or from vertical ...
View of the currents surrounding the gyre. The North Atlantic Gyre of the Atlantic Ocean is one of five great oceanic gyres.It is a circular ocean current, with offshoot eddies and sub-gyres, across the North Atlantic from the Intertropical Convergence Zone (calms or doldrums) to the part south of Iceland, and from the east coasts of North America to the west coasts of Europe and Africa.
Ocean temperature and motion fields can be separated into three distinct layers: mixed (surface) layer, upper ocean (above the thermocline), and deep ocean. Ocean currents are measured in units of sverdrup (Sv) , where 1 Sv is equivalent to a volume flow rate of 1,000,000 m 3 (35,000,000 cu ft) per second.
The Indian Ocean gyre is composed of two major currents: the South Equatorial Current, and the West Australian Current. Normally moving counter-clockwise, in the winter the Indian Ocean gyre reverses direction due to the seasonal winds of the South Asian Monsoon. In the summer, the land is warmer than the ocean, so surface winds blow from the ...
The world's largest ocean gyres. Western boundary currents may themselves be divided into sub-tropical or low-latitude western boundary currents. Sub-tropical western boundary currents are warm, deep, narrow, and fast-flowing currents that form on the west side of ocean basins due to western intensification. They carry warm water from the ...
The Canary Current is a wind-driven surface current that is part of the North Atlantic Gyre. This eastern boundary current branches south from the North Atlantic Current and flows southwest about as far as Senegal where it turns west and later joins the Atlantic North Equatorial Current. The current is named after the Canary Islands.
The oceanic regions within the South Pacific Gyre (SPG), and other subtropical gyres, are characterized by low primary productivity in the surface ocean; i.e. they are oligotrophic. The center of the SPG is the furthest oceanic province from a continent and contains the clearest ocean water on Earth [2] with ≥ 0.14 mg chlorophyll per m 3. [2]