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EOS, TRANSACTIONS AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION, VOL. 88, NO. 1, doi:10.1029/2007EO010001, 2007

Tub Toys Orbit the Pacific Subarctic Gyre

Curtis C. Ebbesmeyer

Seattle, Wash., USA


W. James Ingraham

Camano Island, Wash.,


Thomas C. Royer

Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Va USA


Chester E. Grosch

Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Va USA


Abstract

In 1992, a cargo container of children's bath toys fell overboard in the middle North Pacific Ocean. Subsequently, 29,000 toys were tracked 4,000 kilometers to southeastern Alaska [Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham, 1994]. The spill's upcoming fifteenth anniversary has prompted an examination of the reports of toys stranded on shorelines around the Subarctic Gyre, a planetary vortex the size of the United States.

Published 2 January 2007.

Index Terms: 4532 Oceanography: Physical: General circulation (1218, 1222); 4512 Oceanography: Physical: Currents; 4594 Oceanography: Physical: Instruments and techniques.

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Citation: Ebbesmeyer, C. C., W. J. Ingraham, T. C. Royer, and C. E. Grosch (2007), Tub Toys Orbit the Pacific Subarctic Gyre, Eos Trans. AGU, 88(1), doi:10.1029/2007EO010001.