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Oceanography

Climate and the Gulf Stream

Nature volume 402, pages 593–595 (1999)Cite this article

The Gulf Stream consists of warm water arriving from the equatorial and tropical regions through the Gulf of Mexico. It is driven by the Trade Winds, which cause sea levels to be higher in the western part of the Atlantic basin and generate an area of high water pressure centred on the Sargasso Sea, comparable to the anticyclonic cells of the atmosphere. Just like winds, water tends to flow from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure. However, the Coriolis force, caused by the Earth's rotation, deflects the flow to the right in the Northern Hemisphere. Ocean currents, therefore, describe a clockwise gyre in the tropical Atlantic, and as the higher sea level is found in the west, the current that flows along the American coast is narrow and fast.

The current is particularly intense and deep in the Florida Straits, through which water leaving the Gulf of Mexico is forced to flow. The narrowest part of the straits is between Florida in the west and the Bimini Island in the east, where it forms a 80-km-wide trench with maximum depth of 800 m. The speed of the current can reach up to 1.5 m s−1 in the strait, and the Coriolis force tends to push the water towards Bimini. This force creates a local pressure and density gradient, which results in a strong tilt in the surfaces of constant temperature and density (see Fig. 2 on page 645). The faster the current, the stronger the tilt.

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Figure 1: Chart of the Gulf Stream drawn by Timothy Folger in the second half of the eighteenth century.

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  1. the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, Laboratoire mixte CNRS-CEA, Parc du CNRS, 91198, Gif sur Yvette cedex, France

    Jean-Claude Duplessy

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  1. Jean-Claude Duplessy
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Correspondence to Jean-Claude Duplessy.

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Duplessy, JC. Climate and the Gulf Stream. Nature 402, 593–595 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/45107

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