Geoscience: Oceanography – Flashcards
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What is the total amount of solid material dissolved in water?
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Salinity
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What is the average salinity of the ocean?
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3.5%
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What is the most common salt in seawater?
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Sodium chloride (common table salt)
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What are the two sources of salt in the ocean?
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The chemical weathering of rocks and the Earth's interior
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What processes add freshwater to the ocean, decreasing salinity?
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Icebergs melting, runoff from land, precipitation, and sea ice melting
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What processes remove large amounts of fresh water, increasing salinity?
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Evaporation from dry, subtropical regions, and the formation of sea ice
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As you go deeper into the ocean, what decreases and what increases?
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Temperature and density
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What is the layer of ocean water where there is a rapid change of temperature with depth?
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Thermocline
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Why is the thermocline absent at the poles?
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The surface temperatures and other generic temperatures are cold
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What two factors affect the TEMPERATURE of seawater...
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Latitude and salinity
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What is the water around the poles called?
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Isothermal (equal temperature)
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What determines water's vertical position in the ocean?
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Density
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What is the layer of ocean water were there is a rapid change of density with depth?
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Pycnocline
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What two factors affect the DENSITY of seawater?
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Temperature and salinity
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Because salinity increases, temperature _______________
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Decreases
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Is the pycnocline absent at high latitudes?
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Yes
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What are the three layers of the ocean recognized by oceanographers?
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Mixed zone, transition zone, and deep zone
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What layer of the ocean is 2% and the surface, and has a lot of mixture of water by wave, currents and tides (uniform temperature; Depends on latitude)?
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Mixed Zone
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What layer is 18% and has the thermocline and the pycnocline?
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Transition Zone
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What layer is 80% and never sees sunlight and is just a few degrees above freezing?
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Deep Zone
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What are masses of ocean water that flow from once place to another?
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Ocean current
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What is the movement of water that flows horizontally in the upper part of the ocean's surface?
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Surface current
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How do surface currents develop?
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Friction between the ocean and the wind
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What is an example of an ocean current?
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Gyre
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What is a large circular current of water?
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Gyre
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What causes a gyre?
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Coriolis effect and Earth's rotation
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What is the deflection of currents away from their original course as a result of Earth's rotation?
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Coriolis effect
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What way do the currents move in the Northern Hemisphere?
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Clockwise
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What way do the currents move in the Southern Hemisphere?
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Counterclockwise
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What are the five main gyres?
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North pacific, south pacific, north atlantic, south atlantic, and indian ocean
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How do ocean currents regulate climate?
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They transfer heat
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How do ocean currents transfer heat?
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Warm moves towards poles, and cold moves towards equator
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What does the Gulf Stream do?
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Brings warm water from the equator up to the North Atlantic Current
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What does the Gulf Stream allow Great Britain and much of northwestern Europe do?
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Get warmer
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Why does cold currents moving towards warm temperatures help?
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Moderates temperature of land areas
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What is the rising cold water from deeper layers to replace warmer surface water?
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Upwelling
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What creates upwelling?
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Wind
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Where is upwelling the most noticeable?
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Coasts
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What does upwelling bring to the surface?
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Greater concentrations of dissolved nutrients to the ocean surface which helps support marine life
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What are vertical currents of ocean water that result from density differences among water masses?
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Density currents
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A decrease in temperature and an increases in salinity can do what?
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Increase density
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How are density currents formed?
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Dense water sinks and slowly spreads out beneath the surface
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At high latitude how does deep ocean circulation work?
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As sea ice forms, the water becomes denser and sinks
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What continent has the highest density of water in the world?
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Antarctica
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At low latitudes how does how does deep ocean circulation work?
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Evaporation increases salinity at the equator
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What is energy traveling along the water?
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Waves
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What do most waves obtain their energy from?
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Wind
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What is the time it takes for one full wavelength to pass a fixed position?
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Wave period
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What is the vertical distance between the trough and crest?
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Wave height
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What is the distance that the wind has traveled across open water?
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Fetch
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What is the horizontal distance between two successive crests or two successive troughs?
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Wavelength
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The height, length, and period depend on what three factors?
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Wind speed, length of time the wind has blown, and the fetch
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What allows energy to move forward through the water while the individual water particles that transit the wave move around in a circle?
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Circular orbital motion
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How does a wave break?
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As a wave approaches the shore, the water becomes shallower and the wavelength decreases
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What are regular changes in the elevation of the ocean surface?
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Tides
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What is the force that produces tides?
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Gravity
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What do tides result in?
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The difference in the gravitational attraction on Earth's surface by the moon and by the sun
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Most places experience ?? high and ?? low tides each day
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2
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What is the primary influence of tides?
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Moon
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What is the difference in height between successive high and low tides?
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Tidal range
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What tides occur when the moon is at a 90º angle to the sun (first and third quarter moons)?
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Neap tide
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What tides occur when the sun, earth, and moon is aligned (full and new moon)?
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Spring tide
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What tide has the greatest tidal range?
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Spring tide
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What influences tidal patterns?
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Shape of coastline, configuration of ocean basins, and water depth
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What type of tide has 1 high and low tide a day?
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Diurnal tides
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What type of tide has 2 high and 2 low tides a day?
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Semidiurnal tides
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What type of tide has 2 high and 2 low tides (at different heights)
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Mixed tides
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How is carbon put into the ocean?
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The ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
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What is the system that stores carbon?
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Carbon sink
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What is the capture and storage of carbon?
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Carbon sequestration
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What does the amount of carbon dioxide and ocean can absorb depend on?
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Temperature and salinity
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When dissolved in the ocean, carbon dioxide forms _____________ _______
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Carbonic acid
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What does carbonic acid primarily separate into?
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Bicarbonate and hydrogen ions
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What do the excess hydrogen ions from the carbonic acid disassociate to?
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Combines with carbonate (decreasing availability to marine organisms)
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Carbonate is used by marine organisms to...
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Create the calcium carbonate compound
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What is the material that composes the shells and exoskeletons of many marine organisms?
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Calcium carbonate
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What does a bicarbonate separate into? (important to form calcium carbonate in shells, exoskeletons, etc)
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Carbonate ions
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What measures how acidic or basic something is (logarithmic scale from 0-14)?
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pH Scale
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What is the pH of ocean water?
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8
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What can happen in high concentrations of carbon dioxide?
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Marine organism's shells can dissolve
