gyre

A gyre in oceanography is any large system of rotating ocean currents, particularly those involved with large wind movements. Gyres are caused by the Coriolis Effect; planetary vorticity along with horizontal and vertical friction, which determine the circulation patterns from the wind curl (torque).[1] The term gyre can be used to refer to any type of vortex in the air or the sea, even one that is man-made, but it is most commonly used in oceanography to refer to the major ocean systems.

For more information about gyre check the Wikipedia article here

ZME Science posts about gyre

Just in case you didn’t know, there’s a garbage island twice as big as France in the Pacific Ocean

Fri, Jan 22, 2010

9 Comments

I was surprised to talk to a bunch of people today and find out they didn’t know about this, so I figured this is definitely something worth knowing. Here’s the deal. There’s a whole lot of garbage floating around; a whole lot ! Some are above the surface, some are below. What happens is they [...]

animals, great north pacific plastic gyre, gyre, island, ocean, Oceanography, plastic, pollution, recycle, Research, study

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