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In oceanography, a gyre (/ ˈ dʒ aɪ ər /) is any large system of ocean surface currents moving in a circular fashion driven by wind movements. Gyres are caused by the Coriolis effect; planetary vorticity, horizontal friction and vertical friction determine the circulatory patterns from the wind stress curl ().
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.
The Great Whirl is a huge anti-cyclonic eddy generated by the Somali current flowing in (northern) summer, and one of the two gigantic Indian Ocean Gyres (the other is the Socotra Gyre). The Great Whirl can be observed between 5-10°N and 52-57°E off the Somali coast in the summer season, a location typically around 200 km southwest of the ...
Eddies that form in that current are distinctive as well. “If they pair up they’ll shoot across the whole of the Tasman Sea and also carry the same kinds of properties with them,” Hughes says.
A geostrophic current is an oceanic current in which the pressure gradient force is balanced by the Coriolis effect. The direction of geostrophic flow is parallel to the isobars , with the high pressure to the right of the flow in the Northern Hemisphere , and the high pressure to the left in the Southern Hemisphere .
Cyclonic eddies rotate anticlockwise (clockwise) in the Northern (Southern) hemisphere and have a cold core. Anticyclonic eddies rotate clockwise (anticlockwise) in the Northern (Southern) hemisphere and have a warm core. The temperature and salinity difference between the eddy core and the surrounding waters is the key element driving vertical ...
The eddies appeared to be caused mostly by topography (particularly islands), wind, and instabilities in the current. These eddies lay mainly between the California Current (flowing toward the equator) and the coastline. [3] The majority of these eddies were cyclonic and had the ability to induce the upwelling of nutrient-rich water.
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 ...