Gulf Stream

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The western boundary current of the North Atlantic subtropical gyre, and the upper limb of the Atlantic overturning where the two coincide. It emerges from the Straits of Florida as the Florida Current, where a submarine telecommunications cable between West Palm Beach and Eight Mile Rock on Grand Bahama has measured its transport near 27°N almost continuously since 1982 at a long-term mean of about 32 sverdrups. Transport grows downstream as the current entrains water from the gyre interior — roughly 85 Sv near Cape Hatteras and about 150 Sv near 65°W before it decays. At Cape Hatteras the current leaves the continental shelf and turns into open water, becoming a meandering, eddy-shedding jet rather than a coastal flow. Northward ocean heat transport across 26°N, which the Gulf Stream dominates, has been measured since 2004 at roughly 1.25 petawatts.