Gyres are large, circulating ocean currents that have been generated by wind and often encompass an entire ocean basin. They are surface-ocean water currents, and persistently blow over the ocean.
The certain types of gyres that are described here are generated when two winds blow towards each other, and cause currents to move in a circular motion. These can be Polar Easterlies, winds that generally blow from the northeast near the North Pole or the southeast near the South Pole. There are also the mid-latitude Westerlies, winds that blow in the mid-latitudes from the southwest in the Northern Hemisphere or from the northwest in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Earth’s rotation causes gyres located in the Northern Hemisphere to swirl in a clockwise pattern, while the planetary rotation causes gyres located in the Southern Hemisphere to swirl in a counter-clockwise pattern.
2. How do ENSOs affect climate on land?
ENSO stands for El Nino-Southern Osculation. It is a periodic warming of the surface water performed on a large scale, and happens every three to seven years, lasting for a predicted amount of one year. It can affect both ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns. An ENSO can create unusual weather situations in areas farther away from the tropical Pacific, particularly towards South America.
During an ENSO event, the established period of large scale warming causes the warmer water to rise to the top of the ocean and move along with the currents. This changes the winds and air currents, allowing the surface water in the eastern Pacific to become unusually cool. Because of this phenomenon, torrential rain causes more snow to be dropped on North America, and more ice storms occur in Canada.
The ocean is filled with currents that move in many directions, but the direction in which certain winds blow (such as the tropical trade winds or the westerlies) across the latitudes can push the currents into forming circular patterns. These patterns are the gyres, the circular ocean currents that typically encompass entire ocean basins.
These occurrences are very disruptive in the ocean, but they can also impact the land weather as well. Due to the dramatic change in surface water temperature, the atmospheric pressure over the North and South American landmass. This change in air pressure can causes serious droughts in South, flooding in the Southwest, and ice storming in the Northeast.
3. Relate the locations of earthquakes and volcanoes to plate tectonics.Plate tectonics is the study of the processes by which the lithosphere plates (plates belonging to Earth's outermost rock layer) move over the asthenosphere, a highly unstable and mechanically weak region below the lithosphere. The earth moving back and forth due to these plates colliding with each other horizontally causes the continents to change their positions relative to where their plates stand, a process that slowly occurs over time.
Both earthquakes and volcanoes are caused by the shifting of the Earth’s plates, due to the tectonic plates (chunks of the planet's surface) being able to move about on their own. When these plates collide with each other, a convergent plate boundary is formed, and whenever these boundaries are crossed and one plate descends on another through subduction, they form vibrations through the rock to the surface. This process causes an earthquake to happen around the area, and forms volcanoes on the planet's surface. Pockets of magma are stuffed beneath two tectonic plates, and as the tectonic plates move apart from each other,they release lava on to the surface of the land and that becomes the beginnings of a volcano. Because these events are so localized and so securely confined to one specific spot on a plate boundary, the location of most volcanoes and earthquakes can be pinpointed to exact areas where they are most likely to happen.
4. Summarize and Explain the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. (Gyres Pt. 2)
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an island of garbage in the Pacific Ocean that contains all the waste that is pulled from the beaches by gyres. The North Pacific Gyre, a series of circular currents, pulls in the excess garbage that people leave behind on beaches in the east coast, causing the garbage to get caught in the ocean currents and pulled closer to the middle of the sea.
Gyrating currents near America’s west coast, inside the Pacific Ocean, can take up an area almost 8 million square feet. As more and more waste becomes stuck in the Pacific, due to the general carelessness of human beings, the debris travels with the current until they become encased in the large, circular gyre, where it will stay until further interaction with an outside force. The currents are so overpowering that there really is no escape for the waste, and nowhere else for it to go once it gets caught in the system.
This is a huge problem for us, since this leads to patches of trash forming in the sea and more and more waste particles piling up and getting larger, leading to even massive piles that turn into islands like the Pacific Garbage Patch.
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