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An ocean gyre is a large system of circulating ocean surface currents caused by wind stress and planetary vorticity. Learn how gyres are asymmetrical, how they are influenced by Ekman pumping and suction, and how they have western intensification.
Learn about the North Pacific Gyre, one of the five major oceanic gyres in the world, and its four prevailing currents: the North Pacific Current, the California Current, the North Equatorial Current, and the Kuroshio Current. The gyre covers most of the northern Pacific Ocean and is the site of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
The North Atlantic Gyre is a circular ocean current that traps human-made marine debris in its natural garbage patch. Learn about its structure, seasonal variability, and role in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.
A high-pressure area is an area where the atmospheric pressure is greater than the pressure in the surrounding regions. It results from interplays between the dynamics of an entire planet's atmospheric circulation and causes different weather patterns depending on the hemisphere and season.
Extratropical cyclones, also called mid-latitude cyclones or wave cyclones, are low-pressure areas that drive the weather in the middle latitudes of Earth. They form along frontal zones with upper-level jet streaks and can produce various weather phenomena, such as explosive cyclogenesis and extratropical transition.
A Foucault pendulum is a device that demonstrates the Earth's rotation by swinging in a circular plane that rotates over time. Learn about its history, mechanism, and how it works at different latitudes and locations.
The Southern Ocean is the second-smallest of the five principal oceanic divisions, encircling Antarctica south of 60° S latitude. Learn about its origin, name, boundaries, circulation, climate change and marine ecosystems from this comprehensive encyclopedia article.
The tangential speed of Earth's rotation at a point on Earth can be approximated by multiplying the speed at the equator by the cosine of the latitude. [42] For example, the Kennedy Space Center is located at latitude 28.59° N, which yields a speed of: cos(28.59°) × 1,674.4 km/h = 1,470.2 km/h. Latitude is a placement consideration for ...