North Atlantic Garbage Patch
Encyclopedia
Marine debris
Marine debris, also known as marine litter, is human created waste that has deliberately or accidentally become afloat in a lake, sea, ocean or waterway. Oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the centre of gyres and on coastlines, frequently washing aground, when it is known as beach litter or...
found floating within the North Atlantic Gyre
North Atlantic Gyre
The North Atlantic Gyre, located in the Atlantic Ocean, is one of the five major oceanic gyres. It includes the Gulf Stream and contains the Sargasso Sea. 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...
, originally documented in 1972. The patch is estimated to be hundreds of kilometers across in size, with a density of over 200,000 pieces of debris per square kilometer. The debris zone shifts by as much as 1600 km (994.2 mi) north and south seasonally, and drifts even farther south during the El Niño-Southern Oscillation
El Niño-Southern Oscillation
El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is a quasiperiodic climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean roughly every five years...
, according to the NOAA
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , pronounced , like "noah", is a scientific agency within the United States Department of Commerce focused on the conditions of the oceans and the atmosphere...
.
Research
To study the scale of the marine debris accumulation in the area, the Sea Education Society (SEA) has been doing extensive research on the Atlantic Garbage Patch. Nearly 7,000 students from the SEA semester program have been dragging 6,100 fine-mesh nets through the Atlantic over 22 years. The gyre in the North Atlantic Ocean contains plastic marine pollution in a pattern and amount similar to what has been found in the Great Pacific Garbage PatchGreat Pacific Garbage Patch
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N to 42°N...
.
See also
- Great Pacific Garbage PatchGreat Pacific Garbage PatchThe Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N to 42°N...
- Indian Ocean Garbage PatchIndian Ocean Garbage PatchThe Indian Ocean Garbage Patch, discovered in 2010, is a gyre of marine litter suspended in the upper water column of the central Indian Ocean, specifically the Indian Ocean Gyre, one of the five major oceanic gyres. The patch does not appear as a continuous debris field...
- Ecosystem of the North Pacific Subtropical GyreEcosystem of the North Pacific Subtropical GyreThe North Pacific Subtropical Gyre is the largest contiguous ecosystem on earth. In oceanography, a subtropical gyre is a ring-like system of ocean currents rotating clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere caused by the Coriolis Effect. They generally...