How many gyres are there in the worlds oceans

Those places where cold water mixes with warm, nutrient-poor water often contain high levels of biomass living things as well as a high degree of biodiversity different species. Many warm-water animals that favor these boundary zones, such as tuna, swordfish and squid, are particularly important commercial resources, so understanding how and where ocean waters mix gives fishing fleets the ability to locate schools and minimize their time at sea.

It also gives marine biologists information they need to help manage fisheries or protect endangered species. This can be a hazard to marine life and, as the chemicals in the plastics enter the food chain, of concern to humans, as well. Currents shape the coasts in ways that are likely to be obvious to someone standing on shore. They also physically shape the ocean basins in ways that are much more subtle, but no less important to oceanographers.

Much as a slow-moving river will have a silty bottom and a fast-moving stream will have a rocky bed, ocean currents transport and deposit material on the ocean bottom in identifiable ways. By understanding the relationship between the size, composition and distribution of particles found on the bottom with the motion of the water column above, scientists who study long cores of ocean sediment can tell how currents have changed or moved over time.

This in turn helps explain how factors such as fresh water from melting ice or changes in global wind patterns might lead to large-scale changes in ocean circulation or climate in the future. WHOI physical oceanographer sheds light on the climate-critical link between ocean currents and plankton. Scientists track hungry blue sharks as they ride swirling currents down to the ocean twilight zone—a layer of the ocean containing the largest fish biomass on Earth.

Changes in the Arctic Ocean are becoming clearer, thanks to an ocean monitoring network maintained by WHOI researchers in the Beaufort Gyre since He uses techniques that span isotope geochemistry, next generation DNA sequencing, and satellite tagging to study the ecology of a wide variety of ocean species. He recently discovered that blue sharks use warm water ocean tunnels, or eddies, to dive to the ocean twilight zone, where they forage in nutrient-rich waters hundreds of meters down.

Born in New Zealand, Simon received his B. With much of his work in the South Pacific and Caribbean, Simon has been on many cruises, logging 1, hours of scuba diving and hours in tropical environs.

He has been a scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution since Gregory Skomal is an accomplished marine biologist, underwater explorer, photographer, and author. He has been a fisheries scientist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries since and currently heads up the Massachusetts Shark Research Program.

For more than 30 years, Greg has been actively involved in the study of life history, ecology, and physiology of sharks. His shark research has spanned the globe from the frigid waters of the Arctic Circle to coral reefs in the tropical Central Pacific.

Much of his current research centers on the use of acoustic telemetry and satellite-based tagging technology to study the ecology and behavior of sharks. He has written dozens of scientific research papers and has appeared in a number of film and television documentaries, including programs for National Geographic, Discovery Channel, BBC, and numerous television networks.

His most recent book, The Shark Handbook, is a must buy for all shark enthusiasts. Robert D. He served in the U. Navy for more than 30 years and continues to work with the Office of Naval Research. A pioneer in the development of deep-sea submersibles and remotely operated vehicle systems, he has taken part in more than deep-sea expeditions. In , he discovered the RMS Titanic , and has succeeded in tracking down numerous other significant shipwrecks, including the German battleship Bismarck , the lost fleet of Guadalcanal, the U.

He is known for his research on the ecology and evolution of fauna in deep-ocean hydrothermal, seamount, canyon and deep trench systems. He has conducted more than 60 scientific expeditions in the Arctic, Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.

Sunita L. Her research explores how the larvae of seafloor invertebrates such as anemones and sea stars disperse to isolated, island-like habitats, how larvae settle and colonize new sites, and how their communities change over time. Kirstin also has ongoing projects in the Arctic and on coral reefs in Palau.

Her work frequently takes her underwater using remotely operated vehicles and SCUBA and carries her to the far corners of the world. What are Currents, Gyres, and Eddies? Wind, Currents and Coriolis Wind is the primary force that creates and moves surface currents; Earth's rotation plays an important role in steering the water's motion. Gyres The net wind-driven movement of water, known as Ekman transport, creates a bulge in each ocean basin that is as much as three feet one meter higher than mean global sea level.

But the actual deployment of this technology is still a few years out and nobody knows for sure if it will work.

The truth is, plastic pollution goes far beyond these so-called garbage patches. And cleaning the oceans is just one half of the solution. The other half is radically cutting down on how much plastic is being produced to begin with.

At least 8 million metric tons of plastic enter the oceans each year. If current trends continue, 12 billion metric tons of plastic waste will exist in the world by The good news is that the tide may be turning against plastic. All around the world, countries are beginning to ban plastic, recognizing that the convenience it affords is rarely worth the environmental harm it causes. In Kenya, for example, the government recently banned all plastic bags. France, meanwhile, banned all plastic cups, plates and cutlery.

I would imagine this plastic kind of looks like food. Do we know if fish and birds are eating this stuff? They even eat some larger plastics. So for example, the Laysan Albatross in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, we know that just about every dead albatross found on Midway Atoll has some form of plastic in its stomach. We don't know if that's what killed it, but we know that this is becoming a big problem.

So we know that there are micro plastics in the ocean. We know that birds and fish and even some larger marine mammals eat these plastics. We know there are chemicals in the plastics and we know that the chemicals can absorb other toxic chemicals that are floating around in the ocean. So now the big question is, what are those plastics doing to the animals that eat them. Especially if most of the trash is contained in 'garbage patch' areas because of the way the debris naturally accumulates because of ocean currents.

But they're not areas where you can easily go through and skim trash off the surface. First of all, because they are tiny micro plastics that aren't easily removable from the ocean. But also just because of the size of this area. We did some quick calculations that if you tried to clean up less than one percent of the North Pacific Ocean it would take 67 ships one year to clean up that portion. And the bottom line is that until we prevent debris from entering the ocean at the source, it's just going to keep congregating in these areas.

We could go out and clean it all up and then still have the same problem on our hands as long as there's debris entering the ocean. So what can you, me, or anyone do to help? It's as simple as changing your individual behavior every day, creating less waste, reusing what you can, remembering to recycle