Questions tagged [oceanography]
Oceanography is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean. It is also known as oceanology.
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How is sea level measured?
I've thought that perhaps scientists use radar and ping off the ocean's floor, ensuring geo-similarity via GPS, but that doesn't seem to work, considering the open ocean probably also experiences ...
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1answer
30 views
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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1answer
40 views
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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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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1answer
49 views
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
39 views
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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60 views
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
117 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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42 views
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 ...
5
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1answer
57 views
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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0answers
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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
56 views
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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Godfrey's island rule (stream function in multiply connected domains)
In this paper, the authors detail the methods to calculate the stream function $\psi$ from velocity data in the case of the global ocean (i.e., multiply connected domains).
The general idea is to use ...
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Gulf stream weakening affects on both ends of the system - Europe and Carribean
There have been reports about the Gulf Stream weakening. Everything I have read about this concentrates on the (possibly substantial) cooling this would cause in Europe.
If this weakening occurs, ...
6
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1answer
90 views
Carbon's role in ocean acidification
This might seem like a basic question, but I'm a little confused about the effects on ocean acidification of different carbon compounds.
I have heard that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the ...
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2answers
3k views
What is Boomy McBoomFace?
The EarthSky article Great Pacific Garbage Patch now 3 times size of France links both to the newly published article in Scientific Reports Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly ...
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1answer
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Why the $\delta \, ^{18}\text{O}$ in foraminifera shells decrease with temperature even if the oceanic $\delta \, ^{18}\text{O}$ stay constant?
I understand why foram shells contain more $^{18}\text{O}$ when there are ice sheets present, since $^{16}\text{O}$ evaporates more readily and gets trapped in the ice, increasing the relative ...
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Would a volcanic winter trigger an oceanic “spring”?
There is large amounts of observations supporting the effects of volcanic eruptions on climate: A long term subtle warming effect due to $CO_2$ and a short term, but more intense cooling effect due ...
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49 views
Stream function on a periodic domain?
Part 1
In this paper the authors calculate the barotropic stream function from an output of a numerical model as:
$$\psi(x,y)=\int_0^y\int_{-H}^0u(x,y',z)~dz~dy'$$
over a global domain and this is ...
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1answer
109 views
Does being under water provide any protection from a asteroid?
Does being under or on water provide any protection from an asteroid hitting the opposite side of the Earth over being in or on land or in air? Why?
Will the shock wave follow the curvature of the ...
5
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2answers
93 views
How would a world entirely covered in oceans get the nutrients to support life?
On earth nutrients flow from the land to the ocean. Life on oceans need those nutrients to trive.
I was trying to think how an ocean world might support life if there was no land to provide the ...
3
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1answer
75 views
barotropic component definition
In this paper the author calculated the barotropic component $u_{bt}$ of the current $u$ as:
the vertical mean velocity weigthed with the depth differences
If I am not wrong, in a continuous case,...
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1answer
42 views
baroclinic current - dimensional analysis
I am puzzled by the dimensions of the formulas given here for the baroclinic component of ocean currents (first terms on the right-hand side of formulas 5 and 6).
If I am not wrong:
[f]=1/s
[$\rho$]...
2
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1answer
54 views
Saltwater River Freeze and Thaw
We live in a house overlooking a salt water river. We overlook a cove. The river feeds into Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. In the 17 years we have lived here, the river has frozen several times.
...
5
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1answer
60 views
Satellite ocean near-surface air temperature data
For my study, I need to use satellite Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and at the same time I also need satellite air temperature data (Ta) for the first few meters above the ocean.
For SST I'll be ...
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1answer
770 views
Why is carbon pollution given more importance than Sulfur pollution or Nitrogen pollution?
Nitrous oxide ($N_2O$) - primary greenhouse gas
Carbon dioxide ($CO_2$) - primary greenhouse gas
Methane ($CH_4$) - primary greenhouse gas, explosive
Nitrogen monoxide ($NO$) - secondary greenhouse ...
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0answers
40 views
Change on naval distances
I am working on a shipping company and we have several applications to calculate the distance between two ports. My curiosity was triggered by the fact that, time by time I see a small change on the ...
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0answers
68 views
Issues with projection and fig using python and mpl_toolkits.basemap
I currently have depth data that I am plotting with the code below. The problem that I am having has to do with the figure python is spitting out. The figure is really tiny. I have tried a few things ...
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2answers
121 views
Why does the colour of Earths oceans vary?
Why does the colour of Earths oceans vary? Coast lines around the world appear to have different shades of blue. The further one travels from the equator north or south the deep blue the ocean ...
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0answers
43 views
How deep in the ocean is the Afro-Eurasian landmass
I realize this is a question that is a little loose with geological terms. My question was stimulated by a previous discussion on this exchange where people were debating what defines a "seamount" and ...
7
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1answer
100 views
Regarding compression, shuffle filter of netcdf4
I read the doc but still have no idea about
what are the advantages to enable or disable the shuffle,
what level [0-9] of compression is optimal,
what's the best choice of chunk size?
7
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2answers
142 views
What mechanism is used to measure ocean currents from cables?
The volume transport of the Florida Current (one of the parts of the Gulf Stream) is measured using an underwater cable. What are the processes that allow for these measurements? How can we obtain ...
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1answer
212 views
Guinea Current existence in the Atlantic
Why does the Guinea Current exist at all? There are no similar currents in the Pacific or Indian Oceans and the Guinea Current also disappear during northern summers. Why?
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1answer
256 views
Rossby radius as horizontal scale
In the introduction of "Geographical and monthly variability of the first baroclinic Rossby radius of deformation in the South China Sea", the authors states:
In both theoretical and observational ...
2
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1answer
280 views
Which parts of the ocean have been explored?
So there's a sea, right by my house. How do I know if it's been explored, and what info do we have about it?
According to the internet, about 5-10% of the world's oceans has been explored.
Is there ...
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0answers
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Is the seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea mostly sedimentary rock?
This comes from a related question about predicting oil (or not) in the deep sea, not just the continental shelf. Apparently the deep seafloor is igneous, which lowers its chances of holding oilfields....
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3answers
125 views
Thermohaline current in North Atlantic
The thermohaline current in the North Atlantic ocean sinks because it gets cooled, or it gets cooled because of sinking?
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1answer
79 views
Ekman Transport
Is it not the Ekman Transport, or wind drag of the surface water, a violation of the Physical evidence of zero relative velocity at any boundary, in viscous flow?
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1answer
115 views
Depth of the wind-induced currents and the shoreline
In the open sea the speed of the current in the developed sea can be estimated as 3% the wind velocity at 10 meters.
Why is ocean surface velocity around 3% of wind velocity?
Is there a similar ...
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0answers
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Live video feeds for submarine ROVs?
I know of two live video channels showing live feeds of rover dives:
Okeanos Explorer for dives with the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer.
Nautilus live for dives from the Nautilus, operated by the Ocean ...
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1answer
197 views
Difference in surface temperature between the Northwest Atlantic and Northeast Atlantic
Why is the surface waters in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean colder than the surface waters of the Northeast Atlantic Ocean?
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62 views
Is there a formula to calculate shoreline length or water position from ocean?
Assuming in the past the water of the oceans were lower does it also mean that the water was not where it is right now?
If yes, then how do we calculate approximately where the water would have been ...
3
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1answer
305 views
How to calculate the kinetic energy spectra from ocean current timeseries?
How does one practically compute the kinetic energy spectra from a timeseries of u- and v- Cartesian components of ocean current velocity ($m s^{-1}$) obtained from an Acoustic Doppler Current ...
7
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2answers
721 views
What is that drain east of newfoundland
On Google Maps I just found a drain east of Newfoundland:
More details at https://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/view/What_is_that/Jafix1
I wonder what that could be?
I heard about issues from different ...
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0answers
39 views
Reasons for choosing LES in stead of RANS models?
In oceanography, is there any particular reason why choosing large eddy simulations in stead of RANS (regardless of the type of flow)? In both cases, 2d simulations would be used (shallow water model)....
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2answers
88 views
ERA Interim problem with Waves
Has anyone had a problem with significant wave height (swh) and mean wave period (mwp) from ERA-Interim not matching very well with either a time series of measurements or a different model? Or does ...
4
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1answer
59 views
Why is the zonal component of flow in the ocean much larger than the meridional component
I am reading an Oceanography Textbook which explains that in the ocean, planetary vorticity tends to be much larger than relative vorticity therefore, the potential vorticity can be simplified to be f/...
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2answers
3k views
Where do rivers like the Rio de la Plata end and the ocean begin?
We just had visitors (in Monterey, California) from Montevideo, Uruguay.
Not being very familiar with Uruguay, after having taken them to Big Sur, I asked them how far they lived from the ocean.
...
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1answer
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How much water does a wave transport into a sea cave?
How much water is transported (volume) as a wave travels into a sea cave?
The wave has a height of 1 m and a period of 12 seconds. The average water depth at the cave mouth it 5 m and the width is 15 ...
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What caused the bend in the Emperor/Hawaii chain islands? [duplicate]
what caused the bend that formed in the emperor seamount chain. I've been looking around on websites but i cant seem to find a simple explanation.
