Surface temperature in the western North Atlantic. North America is black and dark blue (cold), the Gulf Stream red (warm). Source: NASA

The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates at the tip of Florida, and follows the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The process of western intensification causes the Gulf Stream to be a northward accelerating current off the east coast of North America. At about 40°0′N 30°0′W / 40°N 30°W / 40; -30, it splits in two, with the northern stream crossing to northern Europe and the southern stream recirculating off West Africa. The Gulf Stream influences the climate of the east coast of North America from Florida to Newfoundland, and the west coast of Europe. Although there has been recent debate, there is consensus that the climate of Western Europe and Northern Europe is warmer than it would otherwise be due to the North Atlantic drift, one of the branches from the tail of the Gulf Stream. It is part of the North Atlantic Gyre. Its presence has led to the development of strong cyclones of all types, both within the atmosphere and within the ocean. The Gulf Stream is also a significant potential source of renewable power generation.

History[link]

Benjamin Franklin's map of the Gulf Stream

European discovery of the Gulf Stream dates to the 1513 expedition of Juan Ponce de León, after which it became widely used by Spanish ships sailing from the Caribbean to Spain.^[1] A summary of Ponce de León's voyage log, on April 22, 1513, noted, "A current such that, although they had great wind, they could not proceed forward, but backward and it seems that they were proceeding well; at the end it was known that the current was more powerful than the wind."^[2] Its existence was also known to Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, and to Sir Humphrey Gilbert at that time.^[3]

As deputy postmaster of the British American colonies, Benjamin Franklin became interested in the North Atlantic Ocean circulation patterns. In 1768, while in England, Franklin heard a curious complaint from the Colonial Board of Customs: why did it take British packets several weeks longer to reach New York from England than it took an average American merchant ship to reach Newport, Rhode Island, despite the merchant ships leaving from London and having to sail down the River Thames and then the length of the English Channel before they sailed across the Atlantic, while the packets left from Falmouth in Cornwall?^[4]

Franklin asked his cousin Timothy Folger, a Nantucket whaling captain, for an answer and Folger explained that merchant ships routinely crossed the then-unnamed Gulf Stream – identifying it by whale behavior, measurement of the water's temperature and the speed of bubbles on its surface, and changes in the water's color – while the mail packet captains ran against it.^[4] Franklin worked with Folger and other experienced ship captains, learning enough to chart the Gulf Stream and giving it the name by which it is still known today. He offered this information to Anthony Todd, secretary of the British Post Office, but it was ignored by British sea captains.^[4]

Franklin's Gulf Stream chart was published in 1770 in England, where it was mostly ignored.^[5] Subsequent versions were printed in France in 1778 and the U.S. in 1786.^[6] It took many years for the British to follow Franklin's advice on navigating the current but once they did, they were able to gain two weeks in sailing time.^[6]

Properties[link]

The Gulf Stream proper is a western-intensified current, driven largely by wind stress.^[7] The North Atlantic Drift, in contrast, is largely thermohaline circulation-driven. By carrying warm water northeast across the Atlantic, it makes Western and especially Northern Europe warmer than it otherwise would be.^[8] However, the extent of its contribution to the actual temperature differential between North America and Europe is a matter of dispute as there is a recent minority opinion within the science community that this temperature difference is mainly due to the Atlantic Ocean being upwind of western Europe (producing an oceanic climate) and a landmass being upwind of the east coast of North America.^[9]

Formation and behavior[link]

Evolution of the Gulf Stream to the west of Ireland continuing as the North Atlantic Current

A river of sea water, called the Atlantic North Equatorial Current, flows westward off the coast of northern Africa. When this current interacts with the northeastern coast of South America, the current forks into two branches. One passes into the Caribbean Sea, while a second, the Antilles Current, flows north and east of the West Indies.^[10] These two branches rejoin north of the Straits of Florida, as shown on the accompanying map.

The trade winds blow westward in the tropics,^[11] and the westerlies blow eastward at mid-latitudes.^[12] This wind pattern applies a stress to the subtropical ocean surface with negative curl across the north Atlantic ocean.^[13] The resulting Sverdrup transport is equatorward.^[14] Because of conservation of potential vorticity caused by the northward-moving winds on the subtropical ridge's western periphery and the increased relative vorticity of northward moving water, transport is balanced by a narrow, accelerating poleward current, which flows along the western boundary of the ocean basin, outweighing the effects of friction with the western boundary current known as the Labrador current.^[15] The conservation of potential vorticity also causes bends along the Gulf Stream, which occasionally break off due to a shift in the Gulf Stream's position, forming separate warm and cold eddies.^[16] This overall process, known as western intensification, causes currents on the western boundary of an ocean basin, such as the Gulf Stream, to be stronger than those on the eastern boundary.^[17]

As a consequence, the resulting Gulf Stream is a strong ocean current. It transports water at a rate of 30 million cubic metres per second (30 sverdrups) through the Florida Straits. As it passes south of Newfoundland, this rate increases to 150 million cubic metres per second.^[18] The volume of the Gulf Stream dwarfs all rivers that empty into the Atlantic combined, which barely total 0.6 million cubic metres per second. It is weaker, however, than the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.^[19]

The Gulf Stream is typically 100 kilometres (62 mi) wide and 800 metres (2,600 ft) to 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) deep. The current velocity is fastest near the surface, with the maximum speed typically about 2.5 metres per second (5.6 mph).^[20] As it travels north, the warm water transported by the Gulf Stream undergoes evaporative cooling. The cooling is wind-driven: Wind moving over the water cools it and also causes evaporation, leaving a saltier brine. In this process, the water increases in salinity and density, and decreases in temperature. Once sea ice forms, salts are left out of the ice, a process known as brine exclusion.^[21] These two processes produce water that is denser and colder (or, more precisely, water that is still liquid at a lower temperature). In the North Atlantic Ocean, the water becomes so dense that it begins to sink down through less salty and less dense water. (The convective action is not unlike that of a lava lamp.) This downdraft of heavy, cold and dense water becomes a part of the North Atlantic Deep Water, a southgoing stream.^[22] Very little seaweed lies within the current, although seaweed lies in clusters to its east.^[23]

Localized effects[link]

The Gulf Stream is influential on the climate of the Florida peninsula. The portion off the Florida coast, referred to as the Florida current, maintains an average water temperature at or above 25 °C (77 °F) during the winter.^[24] East winds moving over this warm water move warm air from over the Gulf Stream inland,^[25] helping to keep temperatures milder across the state than elsewhere across the Southeast during the winter. The Gulf Stream's proximity to Nantucket adds to its biodiversity, as it is the northern limit for southern varieties of plant life, and the southern limit for northern plant species.^[26]

The North Atlantic Current of the Gulf Stream, along with similar warm air currents, helps keep Ireland and the western coast of Great Britain a couple of degrees warmer than the east.^[27] However, the difference is most dramatic in the western coastal islands of Scotland.^[28] A noticeable effect of the Gulf Stream and the strong westerly winds (driven by the warm water of the Gulf Stream) on Europe occurs along the Norwegian coast.^[8] Northern parts of Norway lie close to the Arctic zone, most of which is covered with ice and snow in winter. However, almost all of Norway's coast remains free of ice and snow throughout the year.^[29] Weather systems warmed by the Gulf Stream drift into Northern Europe, also warming the climate behind the Scandinavian mountains.

Hurricane Alex formed and moved along the axis of the Gulf Stream in 2004.

Effect on cyclone formation[link]

The warm water and temperature contrast along the edge of the Gulf Stream often increase the intensity of cyclones, tropical or otherwise. Tropical cyclone generation normally requires water temperatures in excess of 26.5 °C (79.7 °F).^[30] Tropical cyclone formation is common over the Gulf Stream, especially in the month of July. Storms travel westward through the Caribbean and then either move in a northward direction and curve toward the eastern coast of the United States or stay on a north-westward track and enter the Gulf of Mexico.^[31] Such storms have the potential to create strong winds and extensive damage to the United States' Southeast Coastal Areas. Strong extratropical cyclones have been shown to deepen significantly along a shallow frontal zone, forced by the Gulf Stream itself during the cold season.^[32] Subtropical cyclones also tend to generate near the Gulf Stream. 75 percent of such systems documented between 1951 and 2000 formed near this warm water current, with two annual peaks of activity occurring during the months of May and October.^[33] Cyclones within the ocean form under the Gulf Stream, extending as deep as 3,500 metres (11,500 ft) beneath the ocean's surface.^[34]

Possible renewable power source[link]

The Gulf Stream transports about 1.4 petawatts of heat, equivalent to 100 times the world energy demand,^[35] and research into different ways to tap this power is being undertaken. One idea, which would supply the equivalent power of several nuclear power plants, would deploy a field of underwater turbines placed 300 meters (980 ft) under the center of the core of the Gulf Stream.^[36] Ocean thermal energy could also be harnessed to produce electricity utilizing the temperature difference between cold deep water and warm surface water.^[37]

See also[link]

• Arctic dipole anomaly
• Humboldt Current           
• North Atlantic Oscillation
• Shutdown of thermohaline circulation
• Western boundary current
• Latitude of the Gulf Stream and the Gulf Stream north wall index

References[link]

Bibliography

Notes

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gulf stream

• Ocean Motion - Description of the Gulf Stream as a western boundary current

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Stephen Wynn
Wynn in June 2008
Born	Stephen Alan Weinberg (1942-01-27) January 27, 1942 (age 70) New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Occupation	Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts Chairman and CEO of Wynn Macau
Net worth	US$2.3 billion (2011)[1]

Stephen Alan "Steve" Wynn (born January 27, 1942) is an American business magnate who played a pivotal role in the 1990s resurgence and expansion of the Las Vegas Strip. His companies refurbished or built what are now widely recognized resorts in Las Vegas, including the Golden Nugget, The Mirage, Treasure Island, Bellagio, Wynn, and Encore.

As of 2011, Wynn is the 512th richest man in the world with a net worth of $2.3 billion (up from $1.5 billion).^[1]

Early life, Frontier, and the Golden Nugget[link]

Wynn was born Stephen Alan Weinberg in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Michael, changed the family's last name in 1946 from "Weinberg" to "Wynn" when Steve was six months old "to avoid anti-Jewish discrimination" according to several sources.^[2] Wynn was raised in Utica, New York, and graduated from The Manlius School, a private boys' school east of Syracuse, New York, in 1959. Steve Wynn studied cultural anthropology and English literature at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity.

Wynn's father ran a string of bingo parlors in eastern United States. In 1963, his father died of complications from open heart surgery in Minneapolis, leaving $350,000 of gaming debts, shortly before Wynn graduated from Penn with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature.

Wynn took over running the family's bingo operation in Maryland. He did well enough at it to accumulate the money to buy a small stake in the Frontier Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, where he and his wife Elaine moved in 1967. Between 1968 and 1972 Wynn also owned a wine and liquor importing company. He managed to parlay his profits from a land deal in 1971 (the deal involved Howard Hughes and Caesars Palace) into a controlling interest in the landmark downtown casino, the Golden Nugget Las Vegas^[3] (he also owned Golden Nugget Atlantic City in Atlantic City, New Jersey). Wynn renovated, revamped and expanded the Golden Nugget from a gambling hall to a resort hotel and casino with enormous success, in the process attracting a new upscale clientele to downtown Las Vegas.

The Mirage, Treasure Island and Bellagio[link]

Wynn had previously acquired interests in various existing casinos. His first major Strip casino, The Mirage, which opened in 1989, set a new standard for size, opulence and construction costs. The Mirage featured an indoor forest and an outdoor "volcano"; and with high-quality room appointments and an emphasis on service, the Mirage was another major success. The Mirage was the first project in which he was involved in the design and construction of a casino. The $630 million cost to build the facility was financed largely with junk bonds issued by Michael Milken. The property was considered a high-risk venture by the standards then prevailing in Las Vegas because of its expensiveness and emphasis on luxury. However, it became enormously lucrative and made Wynn a major part of Las Vegas history.

Wynn's next project was Treasure Island Hotel and Casino, which opened in 1993 at a cost of $450 million. With its live pirate show and location next to The Mirage, Treasure Island was another victory for Wynn. The Cirque du Soleil show at the Treasure Island was the first permanent Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas.

Wynn expanded further on his concept of the luxury casino with Bellagio, a $1.6 billion resort, including an artificial lake, indoor conservatory, a museum-quality art gallery and branches of high-end boutiques and restaurants from Paris, San Francisco, and New York City. The architect was the famous American Jon Jerde of The Jerde Partnerships. When built, Bellagio was the most expensive hotel in the world. The Bellagio is credited with starting a new spree of luxurious developments in Las Vegas. Among these developments include The Venetian, Mandalay Bay, and Paris Las Vegas.

Beau Rivage[link]

He also designed and built a luxury resort, the Beau Rivage, in Biloxi. Beau Rivage was originally the name he wanted to give to the Bellagio. After Wynn vacationed in Italy, he decided Bellagio was the better name for the hotel after the Bellagio of Italy.

Wynn Las Vegas to Wynn Macau to present and Encore[link]

Mirage Resorts was sold to MGM Grand Inc. for $6.6 billion ($21 a share) in June 2000 to form MGM Mirage. Five weeks before the deal was closed (April 27, 2000) Steve Wynn purchased the Desert Inn for $270 million. He closed the Inn in only 18 weeks, and with the money he made on that deal, and with his ability to secure ever-greater financing, Steve Wynn took Wynn Resorts Limited public in 2002. Wynn became a billionaire in 2004, when his net worth doubled to $1.3 billion.^[4] On April 28, 2005 he opened his most expensive resort to that date, the Wynn Las Vegas, on the site of the former Desert Inn.

Wynn successfully bid for one of three gaming concessions that were opened for tender in Macau, a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China, which has a long history of gaming and is the largest gaming market in the world, having surpassed Las Vegas in 2006.^[5] This property, known as Wynn Macau, opened on September 5, 2006.

In the summer of 2008, hiring began for Encore Las Vegas, the newest in Steve Wynn's collection of resorts (the tower of Encore is modeled after the Wynn Las Vegas tower, and in fact, they share the same "property" though they are separate hotels). Wynn hired 3500 employees for this property. Encore opened on December 22, 2008.

Wynn Encore Macau opened on April 21, 2010.

Recently he spent a record price for a painting by J. M. W. Turner, $35.8 million for the Giudecca, La Donna Della Salute and San Giorgio and spent $33.2 million on a Rembrandt, the auction record for the artist.^[6]

Many of the collection's pieces were on display at the Bellagio. The collection was on display at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno while the Wynn Las Vegas was being constructed and was installed in the resort shortly before it was opened. The Wynn Las Vegas gallery, which had charged an entrance fee, closed shortly after the start of 2006. The artwork from the former gallery is now scattered around the resort. Although the artwork is owned personally by Wynn, Wynn Resorts pays an annual lease of $1. As part of the lease agreement, insurance and security are the responsibility of the company.

The centerpiece of the collection is Le Rêve, the Picasso portrait that was the working name of the resort project. Wynn purchased the painting in 1997 for $48.4 million at the Christie's auction of the Ganz-collection on November 11, 1997. In 2006 he reportedly was to sell it to Steven A. Cohen for $139 million, which would at that time have been the highest price paid for any piece of art. However, he put his elbow through the canvas while showing it to his guests, including the screenwriter Nora Ephron and her husband Nick Pileggi, the broadcaster Barbara Walters, the art dealer Serge Sorokko and his wife, the model Tatiana Sorokko, the New York socialite Louise Grunwald and the lawyer David Boies and his wife, Mary.^[7] This canceled the sale, and after a $90,000 repair, the painting was estimated to be worth $85 million. Wynn sued his insurance company over the $54 million difference with the virtual selling price, possibly exceeding his own buying price. The case was settled out of court in April 2007.^{[8][9][10][11]}

Personal life[link]

Wynn married Elaine Farrell Pascal in 1963. They divorced in 1986, remarried in 1991, and filed for divorce again in 2009.^{[citation needed]} Elaine Wynn remains a director of the company's board. Wynn once said he bought the Desert Inn casino, the site of his Wynn Las Vegas, as a birthday gift for his wife.^[12]

They have two daughters, Kevyn and Gillian. Kevyn was kidnapped in 1993^[13] and Wynn paid $1.45 million in ransom for her safe return. The kidnappers were apprehended when one attempted to buy a Ferrari in Newport Beach, California, with cash. Kevyn was found unharmed several hours later.

Steve Wynn also suffers from the degenerative eye disease retinitis pigmentosa (RP), which cripples night vision and reduces visual ability in the periphery until the sufferer essentially has "tunnel vision." Many people with RP eventually become legally blind.

In 2010, Wynn switched to a vegan diet after watching the documentary Eating by Mike Anderson.^[14][15]

In December 2010, Prince Albert II of Monaco bestowed Monegasque citizenship to Wynn. This was unusual since a prerequisite of Monegasque citizenship is to reside there for at least ten continuous years and contribute in some major way, and Wynn has never resided there. According to the Las Vegas Sun, Wynn was given the citizenship when he agreed to serve as outside director in the Monaco QD International Hotels and Resorts Management, which is a joint venture between the governments of Monaco and Qatar. The organization buys and manages hotels in Europe, the Middle-East and North America.

On April 29, 2011, Wynn married Andrea Hissom in a ceremony at the Wynn Las Vegas.

Accolades[link]

Wynn is collector of fine art, and has bought numerous works by artists such as Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Julian Hatton, Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Johannes Vermeer.
Close to the Wizard of Oz by Julian Hatton.^[16]

In May 2006, Time magazine included Wynn as one of the World's 100 Most Influential People.

Wynn was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts by President George W. Bush on October 30, 2006.^[17]

In November 2006, Wynn was inducted into the American Gaming Association Hall of Fame.

Wynn has received honorary doctorates from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Sierra Nevada College.

On July 26, 2009, a segment on Wynn was aired on the CBS News series 60 Minutes.

Wynn was named to Institutional Investor's Best CEOs list in the All-America Executive Team Survey from 2008 through 2011.^[18]

Wynn was one of three new additions to the Barron's Top 30 C.E.O's in the World List in 2010.^[19]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Steve Wynn

• Steve Wynn at the Internet Movie Database