North Brazil Current Rings
From July to February, it is quite common for the current to separate from the coast and curve back into itself. Since the current can be quite large, it is easy for large anticyclonic rings to generate, which separate from the main mass of the current and move northwestward with the prevailing winds. The mean diameter of the rings is about 300 kilometers, and move between 8 and 30 kilometers per day depending on the strength of the flow surrounding the ring. The rings are relatively shallow and move typically less than 1 Sv of water. The rings will eventually spin down after 100 days. Most rings make it to within the vicinity of the Caribbean Sea, and it is even possible for some to move into the Caribbean, given that they are small enough to fit between the Lesser Antilles.
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Famous quotes containing the words north, current and/or rings:
“Civilization must be destroyed. The hairy saints
Of the North have earned this crumb by their complaints.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“But there, where I have garnered up my heart,
Where either I must live or bear no life;
The fountain from the which my current runs
Or else dries up: to be discarded thence,
Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
To knot and gender in!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The next time the novelist rings the bell I will not stir though the meeting-house burn down.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)