The North Atlantic Gyre, located in the Atlantic Ocean, is one of the five major oceanic gyres. It is a circular system of ocean currents that stretches across the North Atlantic from near the equator almost to Iceland, and from the east coast of North America to the west coasts of Europe and Africa.
The currents that compose the North Atlantic Gyre include the Gulf Stream in the west, the North Atlantic Current in the north, the Canary Current in the east, and the Atlantic North Equatorial Current in the south. This gyre is particularly important for the central role it plays in the thermohaline circulation, bringing salty water west from the Mediterranean Sea and then north to form the North Atlantic Deep Water.
This gyre is similar to the North Pacific Gyre in the way it traps man-made ocean debris in the North Atlantic Garbage Patch, similar to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific.
The North Atlantic Gyre forms the Sargasso Sea, noted for its still waters and dense seaweed accumulations.
Famous quotes containing the words north, atlantic and/or gyre:
“If I could put my hand on the north star, would it be as beautiful? The sea is lovely, but when we bathe in it the beauty forsakes all the near water. For the imagination and senses cannot be gratified at the same time.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The battle of the North Atlantic is a grim business, and it isn’t going to be won by charm and personality.”
—Edmund H. North, British screenwriter, and Lewis Gilbert. First Sea Lord (Laurence Naismith)
“Lovers of horses and of women, shall
From marble of a broken sepulchre
Or dark betwixt the polecat and the owl,
Or any rich, dark nothing disinter
The workman, noble and saint, and all things run
On that fashionable gyre again.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)