# Questions tagged [oceanography]

Oceanography is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean. It is also known as oceanology.

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### Regional and Relative Sea level

I am a little confused by the terms "regional" and "relative" in the sea level change context. Do the two words have the same meaning? Does the "regional MSL trend" in https://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/...
3k views

### Why doesn't sea level show seasonality?

North-hemisphere ice-shelf melts on summer and grows on winter. I would expect appreciable changes on sea-level between seasons, but sea-level looks equal on winter than on summer. Why doesn't sea ...
20 views

### Beta plane approximation: variation of Coriolis parameter

The Beta plane approximation put me in confusion. Beta plane approximation explain me how the Coriolis parameter changes with latitude. Beta parameter changes with the cos(latitude) but this is ...
79 views

### What would happen if I installed distributed water fountains in all of the ocean's dead zones? [closed]

As every thalassologist knows, the ocean is filled with great streches of desert with no marine photosynthetic life. What would happen if, for each of these oceanic deserts, I densely filled them with ...
36 views

### What is the significance of amphidromic points related to tides?

On reading about tide formation and the role of moon's gravitational force, I came across the term amphidromic point. Could someone please elaborate this concept?
66 views

### Molten salt seas on the future Earth

As the sun gets brighter, the oceans are expected to evaporate by the next billion years or so (the vapor slowly gets stripped off into space). The salt, which is less dense than most rocks, will be ...
45 views

### Quickly breeding oysters to combat oceanic pollution?

I've been doing some wikipedia binging and it's come to my realization that it may be in the Earth's best interest to raise the world oyster population as quickly as possible. The basis for this is ...
63 views

### What is the weather data covering the range of 359 to 360 degree

I downloaded a grib file of oceanography (Mean Wave Period) from ERA-Interim and the longitude values give the value at the points is 0,1, 2, 3....357, 358, 359 If I have geographical coordinates ...
105 views

### Could the Grand Canyon be flooded by the ocean if it got deep enough?

The Colorado River has been carving the Grand Canyon for a few million years now, such that the canyon floor is around 6000 feet lower in elevation than the surrounding area, at about 2400 feet above ...
35 views

### Finding vessel and wave's angle of attack [closed]

I am finding angle between ship's heading and component in wave (wave's angle of attack), not sure if ES is a right place to ask this type of question. Should it be the difference between mean wave ...
118 views

### Understood cause of sea level rise between 1850 and 1950

This question is based on the following graph from a 2018 report by J. Curry. (I haven't found any peer-review of the report itself so I can't vouch for the validity of its claims, but that's not the ...
46 views

### Sea cave vs Sea arch

How do you distinguish sea cave from sea arch? If I want to classify a crack of sea cliff as sea cave, has it to have a dead end? Would you call a geological formation as a sea cave even a kayak can ...
103 views

### What could cause a turn from global warming to global cooling?

Except a hypothesized orbital forcing! Ice cores shows that there are several irregular sharp temperature peaks in between of the big 100,000 years glaciations. What could cause those peaks? Almost ...
36 views

### 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 generaly passes before a coral reef starts to form around the island? Another ...
73 views

### 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 ...
99 views

### How much energy would be required to actively 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?
23 views

### 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 ...
40 views

### 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.
76 views

### 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 ...
30 views

### 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 ...
112 views

### 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,...
14 views

### 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 ...
100 views

### 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 ...
104 views

### 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 ...
836 views

### 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 ...
90 views

### 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 ...
10k views

### 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 ...
31 views

### 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?
43 views

### 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 ...
82 views

### 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 ...
39 views

### 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 ...
237 views

### 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
263 views

### 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 ...
82 views

### 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 ...
364 views

### 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 ...
55 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 ...
53 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?
58 views

### 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 ...
55 views

### 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 ...
66 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 ...
58 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 ...
60 views

### 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 ...
72 views

### 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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### 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?
100 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?