Force Ten (song) worked with Rush on their song "Tom Sawyer", had sent Neil Peart some lyrics for the song, and Peart would add more verses to it. Lyrically, the song describes the "storms of life," making a reference to a very high level of the Beaufort scale ("force ten" is defined as a 'storm', being near the scale's maximum of 12) as an analogy, according to the book "Rush and Philosophy: Heart and Mind United". Musically, "Force Ten" is composed in A minor, with changes into A major scale occurring in the song. The song is set in common time at a
Beaufort Gyre in the Arctic Ocean; the majority of the Arctic's freshwater supply originates from Russian rivers as runoff. The clockwise circulation of the Beaufort Gyre is induced by the wind patterns associated with the permanent anticyclonic high pressure system over the western part of the Arctic. In a clockwise-rotating gyre in the Northern Hemisphere, the Coriolis force causes the ocean water to flow inward toward the gyre's center where it accumulates, effectively forming a dome of water. If the wind patterns shift into a cyclonic circulation due to the residence of a low pressure system (rising air induced by warmer ocean