The Coriolis Effect

As promised, the Coriolis Effect will now be explained. Air moves because of the pressure gradient force and it gets offtrack from its original path. In terms of physics, moving objects appear to be deflected (travel in a curve and not in a straight line) but in reality they are not. The reason it appears that the object curves is because of the Earth's rotation. And since the North Pacific Gyre is above the equator, objects in the ocean's gyres move to the right as earlier stated, while gyres south of the equator move towards the left. The reason why objects north of the equator move to the right is because the air moves from high to low pressure. The faster the air moves and the closer to the North or South Pole, the more the object seems to deflect. The North Pacific Gyre is relatively close to the North Pole. The Coriolis Effect is the cause of cyclones and tornadoes. When the pressure gradient force and the Coriolis force is balanced, the low pressure system will rotate.
This diagram shows the Coriolis force in the north hemisphere, like the gyre we are focusing on. It shows how the gyre is rotating counterclockwise in low pressure area. The blue lines represent the pressure gradient force and the red lines symbolize the Coriolis acceleration. But while the North Pacific Gyre is going counterclockwise, the gyre below it, the South Pacific Subtropical Gyre is going clockwise because it is below the equator and the equator acts a reflection line to create a mirror image. These two gyres interact near the equator, and objects in each one may be pulled out by the other gyre's rotations and inertia it has.

These objects that I keep mentioning, that is garbage in the ocean. Yes, garbage is circulating around and around the ocean in the gyres. The North Pacific Gyre is simply the most noted and famous one for all the garbage floating in it.

Charles Moore, the first man to see and react to the proclaimed 'Eastern Garbage Patch' said, “there were shampoo caps and soap bottles and plastic bags and fishing floats as far as I could see. Here I was in the middle of the ocean, and there was nowhere I could go to avoid the plastic.”

Next post will finally talk about how these gyres in the ocean are trapping all that garbage. Stay tuned!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/fw/crls.rxml