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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 ...
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 Alaska Current is the eastern boundary current of the subpolar Alaska Gyre, [18] while the California Current is the eastern boundary current that completes the North Pacific Gyre circulation. Within the North Pacific Gyre is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch , an area of increased plastic waste concentration.
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 .
This current as part of a baroclinically unstable system meanders and creates eddies (in much the same way as a meandering river forms an oxbow lake). These types of mesoscale eddies have been observed in many major ocean currents, including the Gulf Stream , the Agulhas Current , the Kuroshio Current , and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current ...
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.
The current is circumpolar due to the lack of any landmass connecting with Antarctica and this keeps warm ocean waters away from Antarctica, enabling that continent to maintain its huge ice sheet. Associated with the Circumpolar Current is the Antarctic Convergence , where the cold Antarctic waters meet the warmer waters of the subantarctic ...
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.