Talk:Ocean gyre

Map request
This article could use a map showing where the major gyres in the world's oceans are, and how they relate to major ocean currents. There are a number of maps floating around online which could provide the source information for such a map, though they tend to either show currents or gyres, but not both. -- Beland (talk) 00:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Wind-Driven Surface Currents: Gyres Background - Adapted from the American Meteorological Society, map showing current names
 * Encyclopedia of Earth - Map showing current names and temperatures - Available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License v2.5? Original source is
 * PowerPoint Presentation - Slide 5 shows schematic map of gyres and systems.

Origin of word "gyre"
I had the impression that "gyre" was another of the neologisms that Lewis Carrol used in "Jabberwocky", i.e. "... the slithy toves did gyre and gimbal in the wabe". Did its use predate that poem? Should, at least, there be a disambiguation page mentioning that use? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hsfrey (talk • contribs) 20:42, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The noun is from Latin gyrus, originally meaning a ring. To find when the word was first used in a given sense, for example as a verb "to gyre" or as a noun meaning "ocean vortex," you can check the Oxford English Dictionary.  It attempts to give the earliest known citation for each sense. 70.72.144.66 (talk) 02:14, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Recent renaming
Hello. Firstly, i apologize for the revert in renaming this page. My point is that a lot of articles is linked to this page as Oceanic gyres, and there may be reasons for that. Perhaps we need to set a poll (oppose or propose process) to see if this move is really worth it. Kind regards. Rehman(+) 10:22, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I did not make the name change without examining usage. Google gives 34,900 hits for "Ocean gyre" and 10,200 hits for "Oceanic gyre", a ratio of 3.4:1 in favour of "Ocean gyre". More to the point, Google Scholar gives 981 hits for "Ocean gyre" and 276 hits for "Oceanic gyre", a ratio of 3.6:1 in favour of "Ocean gyre". The usage is clear and does not need a poll. --Epipelagic (talk) 12:10, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I understand. Please accept my apology, i should've checked that. There seems to be a problem with moving back the talkpage to "Talk: Ocean gyre", will fix it by today. Regards . Rehman(+) 01:32, 16 January 2010 (UTC) ✅. Rehman(+) 05:20, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Beaufort Gyre
No mention of this important gyre ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SombreGreenbul (talk • contribs) 13:00, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Coriolis Force
In the section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_gyre#Climate_change there is a statement "Because the Coriolis effect is strongest near the poles". Does anybody have a link supporting this? On Earth one finds no Coriolis effect at the equator or at the poles. Or is this incorrect? --Damorbel (talk) 19:58, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Other gyres
At present this article is about Ocean gyres. Fair enough! But gyres are an entirely general feature of the Earth's hydrology, not just oceans but other bodies of water also. One of the most studied being the Black Sea where there is WIKI section giving an introduction to gyres in the Black Sea. Circulation of water in the Black Sea has received a great deal of attention because the currents know no frontiers and the carry a fair amount of detritus! The section in the Black Sea article is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea#Hydrology but it is rather limited and does not go into the details of Black Sea circulation. In the Black Sea the theory of gyres happens to match the observations rather well e.g. there are gyres at depth that turn in the opposite direction to those on the surface. There is a clear deficiency here, suggestions on how to remedy it should be presented.--Damorbel (talk) 20:44, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree, however, I think because it is hard to find reliable sources that are openly licensed, there is not much that they could do when they were adding information to the article. Now, I believe there is more access to information, and perhaps even the sections that needed citations will soon be back up with sources. Yajzel V (talk) 10:04, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Critique / Evaluation
Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Although most of the information in the article comes from reliable sources, such as academic journals and databases, there are many places where there are no citations after stating a fact. Unfortunately, this is happening a lot throughout the article, and other Wikipedians have also noted this by putting [citation needed] in such places. I suggest that before putting information on the article, we first make sure that we now we can appropriately back up the information with a reliable source.

Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you? I think that the Pollution Lead section in the article is not necessary since the topic of the article should be more about Ocean gyre formation and not Garbage Patches. Although both topics are relevant to one another, that section takes away from what should be the main focus, which I believe has more to do with the scientific explanations of their formations and their locations. Also, because that section is far longer than any other section in the article, it becomes a distraction. However, I do believe that including an explanation/visualization of gyres in their involvement in creating garbage patches is relevant. Therefore, I suggest that we reduce the size of that section so as to not take away from the main topic and create an imbalance.

Yajzel V (talk) 09:57, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: OEAS540 Biogeochemical Earth
— Assignment last updated by Carsonwilliams (talk) 18:56, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Biogeochemical Earth
— Assignment last updated by LHWags (talk) 23:41, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Proposing Major Changes
I feel this page is in need of major changes to bring in line with Wikipedia standards as a part of the Oceans WikiProject. Specific issues include:

- Major gyres section is redundant with subtropical gyres section (all major gyres are subtropical gyres and the current layout does not make that clear). Subtropical gyres and other sections contain numerous spelling and grammar mistakes and is difficult to understand the dynamics as explained.

- Page links to irrelevant pages (e.g., links to Ocean general circulation model) and irrelevant sources (e.g., http://www-pord.ucsd.edu/ltalley/)

- Influence of Coriolis on Westward Intensification section is empty and pointless. Discussion of westward intensification should take place with discussion of general gyre dynamics (which is not well separated from the rest of the article as it stands) and should link to relevant articles such as Boundary current

- Pollution info should be included in relevant ocean gyres sections and not just taken as an excerpt from the main garbage patch page, in agreement with the previous comment by @Yajzel V.

Myself and others recently edited this page as a part of the Wiki Education Assignment (see most recent topic before this post). We address hopefully most of these issues in our proposed restructuring and rewriting of the article.

I am proposing to replace the sections Major Gyres, Other Gyres, Biology in Gyres, The influence of the Coriolis effect on westward intensification, and Pollution (i.e., just leaving the introduction and the climate change section) with the rewritten article. Please take a look and reply if there are any major issues, otherwise I will go ahead with the proposal later this week. Andrewl28 (talk) 03:09, 23 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Seems an overall improvement, potentially caveated that losing the pollution section altogether seems like an area for improvement given the role of ocean gyres as plastic sinks. CMD (talk) 02:46, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Chipmunkdavis
 * I agree that plastic pollution is an important thing to mention on this page. I'm fine with leaving the pollution section as is for these edits, if there is still further discussion required to determine the best way to do so.
 * I still think that having it as a copy-paste excerpt and separate section feels a bit out of place. An alternative solution could be to include a sentence within the Subtropical Gyres subheading of the proposed page that addresses plastic pollution in subtropical gyres and links to the relevant page(s). Andrewl28 (talk) 06:15, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree the copy-paste is suboptimal, but removing that would be letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Preferably the section would be written properly at some point, but I don't think that needs to hold up your improvements. CMD (talk) 11:43, 25 January 2024 (UTC)