long distances. the 4,000 or so kilometers from the west coast of australia all the way to the eastern coastal regions of africa. this is known as the indian ocean gyre. it rerotates in the counter clockwise fashion. it is small scale and large scale rotation patterns. let s use an analogy here. let s say we drop a plastic bottle in the ocean. what will it do? eventually we will see the plastic bottle float. it will move along the water until it raefs an immovable surface like the beach of reunion island or coast of madagascar for instance and fortunately there are some high end computer models known as a drift analysis that can show exactly where debris will eventually end up as we go forward it a 12-month to 14-month period. this is the adrift.org.au website.
for more on the debris found off the coast of reunion island, our meteorologist derek van dam is joining us. derek, i want to ask you the same question. is it feasible this debris could have traveled this far across the indian ocean? george it s a reasonable question but it s imperative that we dig deep in to this flp flaperon. it is made of a composite material that is highly buoyant, well sealed and relatively flight. there are air pockets in the device. that means it can float and for a listening time. that is the answer to that question. but when it gets stuck within these large ocean currents known as gyres, as we are looking here. just below me. this is the indian ocean gyre. it wraps from the west coast of australia in a counterclockwise direction. eventually impacting and meeting
on this wing and figuring out anything an where it might have come from, what might have happened to this plane? sure, toure. first of all, as tom reported we have an enormous task ahead. this debris does several things. one, the global concern of how a jet can disappear with ubiquitous data streaming, gps today, how could this plane disappear and the conspiracy theory that it was safely on the ground? that s gone. secondly, it reinvigorates the search tome search. we know the indian ocean gyre can move a piece they bookended the place where the search could be. so what they re doing now with this little piece, the flaperon is trying to get any forensic evidence off of it. the front leading edge wasn t damaged. the back trailing edge was. that may tell about the angle of attack. the barnicles are interesting because they know where the barnicle that type of barnicle lives in the ocean so
malaysia and australia will spearhead the investigation because they have been searching for this missing plane for 500 days. robin, thanks so much. she is there on reunion island hard to get to. how could debris get from the search area near australia all the way across the indian ocean some 2300 miles away to where we just saw robin on reunion island? we ll bring in meteorologist chad myers looking at the currents. how does it work chad? for the same exact reason that the debris from fukushima, the tsunami there, made it to the west coast of north america. there are these gyres. if you throw a bottle in the ocean here somewhere in the caribbean, it will eventually end up in europe. it s the big circles here these are the currents we talk about. it s the reason why there s a current that goes up the east coast in the first place called the gulf stream that keeps that water very warm there. so let s get to it. what do we have here? we are talking about the indian ocean gyre. this i
2,647 miles away. that has been over a year now. this thing has been floating out there and has been influenced by the ocean currents at this point here. the ocean currents there are five gyres across here because of the circular nature. the gyres do so as well. the piece found on the beach on the coast was large enough buoyant enough to be carried by these gyres which control essentially the first 300 meters or so above the ocean current here. one we are particularly interested in is the indian ocean gyre and southern hemisphere. and things move toward the left in the southern hemisphere. wind direction, ocean current will be deflected toward the left here. on the northern side of the indian ocean gyre here is what we are talking about, everything is moving west.