Ocean gyre

An ocean gyre is a large, persistent system of rotating currents shaped by prevailing winds, Earth's rotation, and the arrangement of continents.

Ekman transport: The net movement of water driven by wind stress and deflected by Earth's rotation. Wind-driven surface transport helps push water toward the centers of subtropical gyres.
North Atlantic subtropical gyre: The clockwise subtropical circulation system in the North Atlantic Ocean. It contains the Gulf Stream and the Sargasso Sea.
Ocean heat transport: The movement of thermal energy through the ocean by currents and mixing. Gyres redistribute heat between tropical and higher-latitude waters.
Thermohaline circulation: Ocean circulation driven by seawater density differences caused by temperature and salinity. It is driven by density contrasts, unlike the primarily wind-driven surface gyres.
Coriolis effect: The apparent deflection of moving objects caused by Earth's rotation. It turns wind-driven currents rightward in the Northern Hemisphere and leftward in the Southern Hemisphere.
North Pacific subtropical gyre: The clockwise subtropical circulation system in the North Pacific Ocean. Its currents encircle the North Pacific and concentrate floating debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Marine debris: Human-made solid material that is discarded or lost in marine environments. Converging surface flows can accumulate floating debris within gyre interiors.
Equatorial current: A predominantly east–west ocean current near the equator, driven by trade winds. Equatorial currents cross ocean basins rather than forming the basin-scale loops characteristic of gyres.
Western intensification: The concentration of ocean-basin circulation into narrow, fast currents along western boundaries. It explains why gyres have stronger currents along their western edges.
South Atlantic subtropical gyre: The counterclockwise subtropical circulation system in the South Atlantic Ocean. It provides a Southern Hemisphere counterpart to the North Atlantic system.

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