Questions tagged [oceanography]
Oceanography is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean. It is also known as oceanology.
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Coral Reef and Volcanic Islands
I have two questions regarding coral reef and volcanic islands.
When a new volcanic island is formed, how much time should pass in general for coral reef to start form around the island?
Another ...
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Using salinity to predict rainfall
Recently, a new method has been proposed by Ray Schmitt (WHOI) and collaborators to use salinity patterns in the ocean to predict weather events (more specifically, rainfall) at scales from weeks to ...
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How much energy would be required to reduce the temperature of the oceans of Earth by 1℃?
Is there a way to calculate the energy required to reduce the heat of oceans?
Am I wrong in thinking it is not as simple as reversing the calculation for specific heat of sea water?
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Does long-term exposure to ocean water change the chemical structure of plastic into ocean plastic?
I've just been thinking a fair deal about ocean plastic and the ocean clean-up project. Is there something in saline water that changes the chemical composition of most plastics to make them pretty ...
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What are the hottest temperatures ocean life can survive at [closed]
What are the hottest average annual temperature for life in the ocean to withstand? Particularly algae
This could include life from all points in earth history.
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1answer
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Why are the seas difficult to navigate at the “southern edge” of land?
The question was inspired by an answer to this question on History SE, which referred to the "at times enormous waves" at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, and the even more "treacherous" passage ...
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Why an inertial gyro has a frequency and a geostrophic gyro does not?
Inertial flow is given by the balance between Coriolis and centrifugal forces. A geostrophic flow is given by a balance between Coriolis and the gradients of pressure. The frequency of the inertial ...
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Why do Mediterranean main currents surrounding landmasses turn counter-clockwise?
At North Hemisphere, main superficial currents turn clock-wise, because of Coriolis Effect.
I would expect on Mediterranean Sea to have currents turning in the same sense, but, surrounding landmasses,...
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transition elastic deformation to flow
Let's assume a small (and smooth) vertical deformation of the seabed. If done quickly, I can consider it a vertical force generating an acoustic wave in the water, where every particle of water ...
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What goes into a tide power prediction for every fifteen minutes over the next twenty five years?
I was watching a segment about tidal power generation on a PBS NewsHour broadcast. I've set the time code at about 11:45 to capture a little background. This bit ...
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What is the collective name for the seas of Indonesia?
The seas in Indonesia or Sunda Shelf or Southeast Asia separates the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. The seas in Indonesia itself are broken into many parts due to presence of islands such as Sunda ...
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Are there seamounts as close as 100 m to the water surface and not inside any Exclusive Economic Zone?
I did not find any seamounts as close as 100 m to the water surface (100m from the mean surface level at the location of the mountain) that are not part of any Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ.)
Do any ...
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How to strong winds cause baroclinic intensification in the upper ocean?
Below is an excerpt from The Biology of the Indian Ocean, Bernt Zeitzschel, Sebastian A. Gerlach
The more vigorous atmospheric and oceanic circulation during the SW
monsoon causes not only the ...
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Would oceans regenerate if removed?
On Earth, there is enough Hydrogen and Oxygen to make 13,88 million km$^3$ of water (calculation below). However, oceans contain only a tenth of that.
Clearly, most of the hydrogen must be stored in ...
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Do icebergs have any impact on ecology?
Are icebergs neutral actors in the environment, or do they have any impact on the local ecology. Do they have any environmental impacts that might influence any part of the biosphere?
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1answer
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Global tide calculation
I am familiar with the concept of harmonic tide coefficients and was wondering about the simplest software solution to calculate tides anywhere, worldwide.
Are there any available, open source ...
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What kind of temperature unit is “cK”?
An article about ocean temperature history/modeling has this plot:
Where the units are given as cK.
cK does not seem to be a ...
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Measuring Transect Length on Sea Floor
I was wondering if anybody had any insight or thoughts on a technological bottleneck we are facing in data collection.
Basically, we have vessels (single operator) dig the substrate for collection ...
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1answer
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How to calculate Wind direction from uwind and vwind?
How to calculate wind direction from uwind and vwind?
if uwind and vwind are -1.82 , -3.18 respectively
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If ALL the ice melted, what percentage of the Earth's surface would be water?
At the present time, about 70% of the earth's surface is liquid water (perhaps that includes floating ice around Antarctica, and the Arctic Ice cap).
What percentage of the Earth's surface would be ...
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How much net carbon can coral sequester?
So I am wondering how much carbon any given coral can sequester given that carbon dioxide dissolves in water and forms carbonic acid, and coral uses that carbonic acid in their own calcification ...
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How is sea level measured?
In comments on Earth changes due to global climate change, sea level changes is a common topic. I hear quotes about sea level changes in the centimeter and even millimeter range and wonder how such ...
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1answer
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predicting low tide
At 18:03 PDT at La Jolla Cove the lifeguard's bulletin board stated predicted low tide at 5:36 (17:36 PDT?). In fact, it was already after 6:00 and the sun had not yet set. The moon was a waxing ...
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Why are climate anomalies calculated relative to 1981-2010 average?
What is the purpose for doing this? Is it inaccurate to calculate anomalies for variables such as sea surface temperature and precipitation based on a different time period?
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Deep sea pumps that work on wind power, can they control the weather?
If they used wind power to bring up cold water from far under the ocean in the day time and spray it on prevailing winds going into land, could they make it rain more in arid regions? What weather ...
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How to classify the ENSO phase of a year?
I am using the ONI index to classify the years of high rainfall seasons (December–February) as El Niño, Neutral or La Niña. El Niño year is classified as one if the ONI index value is +0.5 °C for 5 ...
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How much of arctic ice is from snow fall versus frozen sea water?
How much of arctic ice is from snow fall versus frozen sea water? I presume arctic ice comes from both sources.
Is there a way to tell how the ice was formed? In other words, if you made a core ...
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1answer
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Would a Biorock formed buiding be suitable for ocean floor research?
Electrodeposition of dissolved minerals in seawater has been used to make coral reef repairs for quite some time. WOLF H. HILBERTZ patented the process and trademarked the name Biorock. I do not have ...
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1answer
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Are La-Nina and positive Indian Ocean dipole similar?
Because in both the cases, the warm water/ increase in temperature is seen on the east side of Africa. Does not they mean that they carry rain bearing clouds from east of Africa to India, resulting ...
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Are beaches found all along the coast? If not, what is required for them to be formed?
Why are beaches not found all along the coast?
If not beaches, what else can be found along the coast.
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1answer
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If the earth were completely smooth and covered in water, what would occur with ocean waves?
Related to this post: If the Earth were a smooth spheroid, how deep would the ocean be?
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88 views
Floating rock found in southern florida
I found the rock on the beach. It has a redish hue and floats on water. It feels as though it is hollow because it is light for its size. Does anyone have an idea what this is?
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1answer
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How is the total area of the world's oceans 361 million sq km?
How is the total area of the world's oceans 361 million square kilometres? I can't see how the five individuals ones add to that.
When I Google how many squared km is this/that ocean, I get
When add ...
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1answer
272 views
What is the (average) velocity of ocean currents?
Does anybody know where to find statistical (average, standard deviation) data on velocities of ocean currents, such as
Equatorial countercurrent North of Madagascar
Agulhas current
East Australia ...
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regression map vs correlation map
What is the exact difference between regression and correlation maps?
I know that they are often used in climate science but which is the difference in the information they provide? Here an example I ...
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What is the difference between vertical turbulent entrainment and turbulent diffusion in the ocean?
In analyses of mixed layer heat budget analysis, authors of different papers have considered the contribution of vertical mixing in different ways.
Halkides and Lee (2011) have considered ...
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How much ocean water is currently being displaced by ships?
According to Statista, as of January 2017, there are approximately 52,000 ships currently operating in the merchant fleet and 11,000 of these are considered bulk carriers.
How many ships are there ...
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Caspian Sea oil deposits
Azerbaijan appears to have vast development in its oil sector. Images on google earth show oil platforms connected by road ways far out into the Caspian Sea of the coast of Baku. Why is the majority ...
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1answer
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How quickly can coral fossilize?
On a trip to Honduras a few years ago I visited one of the islands off its north coast with a friend and went to a section of it mostly with nothing but residences which looked far less visited by ...
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What kind of tooth is this?
Please help me identify this tooth and the era its from. I found it in Panama City Beach Florida. Its cold and hard when i bite it. It looks very old. Possibly a shark tooth?
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Do ocean level rise estimates account for mantle elasticity and plate mass changes?
In the mainstream media the problem of ocean level rise is presented rather... over-simplistically - ice melts -> more water flows into the oceans -> water level rises -> continents sink.
But it is ...
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Does Martin Ledge uncover?
In the current Wikipedia article for Martin Ledge it reads: "Martin Ledge is small barren rocks that barely stick out of the waters". However, the NOAA chart for the area shows a low tide depth of 16 ...
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How the stepness can be computed at NDBC from site with only dominant wave data and windwave data
Hi guys I have an small question here. At the NDBC website they have at most of the buoys the steepness of the sea at that time and date: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=46012
...
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Ocean water coming from Mantle vs coming from meteorites
Posibly duplicate from
Water on Mars and Earth
I remember well a hydrology course where our teacher made some calculations of the total flux of water from Mantle ejections in Earth's history. He ...
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Can tides at night by consistently higher than in the daytime? [closed]
Can the tides at night be consistently higher than in the daytime in southwest Australia in the port of Fremantle?
Also, what is the explanation for the tides being significant during a part of the ...
