What is the main climate zone of the North Pacific Gyre?
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Asked by: Sandra Campbell
What is the climate of the North Pacific ocean?
Most of the Pacific Ocean is in low latitudes between 35° N and 35° S and is thus mostly tropical and subtropical in climate.
Is the North Pacific Gyre warm or cold?
The North Pacific Current (sometimes referred to as the North Pacific Drift) is a slow warm water current that flows west-to-east between 30 and 50 degrees north in the Pacific Ocean. The current forms the southern part of the North Pacific Subpolar Gyre and the northern part of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.
What are the major currents of the North Pacific Gyre?
The gyre has a clockwise circular pattern and is formed by four prevailing ocean currents: the North Pacific Current to the north, the California Current to the east, the North Equatorial Current to the south, and the Kuroshio Current to the west.
What is the North Pacific transition zone?
The region of the ocean where the North Pacific subtropical and subpolar gyres meet is known as the North Pacific Transition Zone (NPTZ).
Where is the northern Pacific Ocean?
the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, extending from the equator to the Arctic Ocean.
What are the characteristics of the north Pacific Ocean?
The North Pacific Ocean is distinguished by several unique characteristics, most notably for being host to the lowest surface salinities in a major ocean basin, and the oldest deep waters in the world’s oceans (Tomczak and Godfrey, 1994).
What are the main currents of Pacific Ocean?
10 Main Currents in the Pacific Ocean | Oceans | Geography
- North Equatorial Current (Warm): …
- South Equatorial Current (Warm): …
- Counter Equatorial Current (Warm): …
- Kuroshio System (Warm): …
- Oyashio Current (Cold): …
- 6. California Current (Cold): …
- Peru Current (Cold): …
- El Nino or Counter Current (Warm):
What are the main ocean currents?
There are five major ocean-wide gyres—the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, and Indian Ocean gyres. Each is flanked by a strong and narrow “western boundary current,” and a weak and broad “eastern boundary current” (Ross, 1995).
What are the cold currents in Pacific Ocean?
Oyashio Current (Cold)
The Oyashio cold current is also known as Kurile cold current. This cold current flows through the Bering Strait in southerly direction and thus transports cold water of the Arctic Sea into the Pacific Ocean. Near 50°N latitude this current is bifurcated into two branches.
What is the transition zone in the ocean?
The waters of most of the world’s oceans are stacked like the layers of a cake. Each layer is a different temperature. The top layer is warm, the bottom layer is cold, and the layer in the middle is a transition zone — the region with the biggest change in temperature. That layer is known as the thermocline.
What lives in the transition zone?
Many animals, including some of the most populous species (e.g., flying squid, Pacific pomfret, blue sharks, Pacific saury) that inhabit the Transition Zone undergo extensive seasonal migrations from summer feeding grounds at the subarctic fronts or within subarctic waters to and from winter spawning grounds in the …
What happens in the mantle transition zone?
The mantle transition zone (TZ) is the layer between two discontinuities in seismic wave-speed that lie at depths of approximately 410 km and 650 km [Anderson, 1989]. These discontinuities are polymorphic phase changes, caused by pressure-induced changes of crystal structure in certain minerals [Anderson, 1967].
What is a climate transition zone?
The area known as the Transition Zone is so named because of the transition between cool season grasses and warm season grasses. There is no one grass type that best fits this area. Its winter temperatures can be too cold for some warm season grasses and too hot in the summer for some cool season grasses.
Where is the transition zone?
The transition zone is part of the Earth’s mantle, and is located between the lower mantle and the upper mantle, between a depth of 410 and 660 km (250 to 400 mi).
