The North Pacific Current (sometimes referred to as the North Pacific Drift) is a slow warm water current that flows west-to-east between 40 and 50 degrees north in the Pacific Ocean. The current forms the southern part of the North Pacific Subpolar Gyre. The North Pacific Current is formed by the collision of the Kuroshio Current, running northward off the coast of Japan, and the Oyashio Current, which is a cold subarctic current that flows south and circulates counterclockwise along the western North Pacific Ocean. The North Pacific Current forms the northern part of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. In the eastern North Pacific near southern British Columbia, it splits into the southward California Current and the northward Alaska Current.
Famous quotes containing the words north, pacific and/or current:
“Refinement’s origin:
the remote north country’s
rice-planting song.”
—Matsuo Basho (1644–1694)
“The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“A man is a little thing whilst he works by and for himself, but, when he gives voice to the rules of love and justice, is godlike, his word is current in all countries; and all men, though his enemies are made his friends and obey it as their own.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)