North Atlantic Ocean, America, Africa and Europe

North Atlantic Ocean, the upper part of the Atlantic Ocean, above equator, showing also America, Africa, Europe and Atlantic oceanic islands in the globe.

The Atlantic Ocean can be divided into two parts, by the equator, the circle of latitude that divides Planet Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres: North Atlantic Ocean and the South Atlantic Ocean. The North Atlantic is influenced by both the warm Gulf Stream flowing north-eastward from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean to northwest Europe, and the cold, fresh Labrador Current flowing south from the Canadian Archipelago and Greenland to the northeast coast of the United States. Atlantic oceanic islands includes Fernando de Noronha (Brazil), Cape Verde, Madeira and Azores (Portugal), Bermuda (United Kingdom) and Iceland. The gyres and their western boundary currents include the anticyclonic subtropical gyres of the North Atlantic (Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current).

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceans, with an area of about 106,460,000 km2. It covers approximately 20 percent of Earth's surface and about 29 percent of its water surface area.

North Atlantic biome is the region where the large, lipid-rich copepod Calanus finmarchicus is the dominant mesozooplankton species. This species is superbly adapted to take advantage of the intense pulse of productivity associated with the North Atlantic spring bloom. Most of the characteristic North Atlantic species, including cod, herring, and right whales, rely on C. finmarchicus either directly or indirectly.