Water Resource Plan

Contains the smaller Agulhas Current System Antarctic Circumpolar Current Weddell Sea Subpolar Gyre (Southern Ocean)
Ross Sea Subpolar Gyre (Southern Ocean)
North Pacific Subpolar Gyre
Contains the smaller Alaska Gyre North Pacific Subtropical Gyre aka North Pacific Gyre North Pacific Current, California Current, North Equatorial Current, Kuroshio Current () The gyre that I will be focusing on is the North Pacific Gyre. This gyre occupies the
major portion of the North Pacific Ocean. A high-pressure zone is at the center of a subtropical
gyre around which the circulation is clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counter
clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. This is the Coriolis force (the equation of motion of an
object in a rotating frame of reference), which you can observe for yourself in your bathroom. It
is what causes the bathwater to drain in clockwise vortex above the equator and in a counter
clockwise vortex below the equator. See the illustration below to get an idea of how the different
currents rotate within the North Pacific Gyre.

Figure 1 North Pacific Subtropical Gyre() The Problem The circulation of the North Pacific Gyre is rotating within the better part of the Northern Pacific Ocean. The currents rotate in a clockwise direction and covers about 10 million square miles of the Northern Pacific Ocean. Any debris that is swept up by the current that flows along the North Pacific Rim accumulates within the gyre’s vortex between the west coast of North America and the Hawaiian Islands. This mass of accumulated garbage covers an area twice the size of Texas and extends 100 feet below the surface. Eighty percent of the trash within the gyre has a terrestrial origin and consists mostly of
plastic of all types. Also found within the garbage is rope, nylon fishing line, drift nets, barrels of
toxic substances, untreated human waste, various toxic substances, and countless marine animal
species, including whales, dolphins and sea turtles...