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In oceanography, the sverdrup (symbol: Sv) is a non-SI metric unit of volumetric flow rate, with 1 Sv equal to 1 million cubic metres per second (264,172,052 US gal/s). [1] [2] It is equivalent to the SI derived unit cubic hectometer per second (symbol: hm 3 /s or hm 3 ⋅s −1): 1 Sv is equal to 1 hm 3 /s.
It can be thought of as a list of the biggest rivers on Earth, measured by a specific metric. For context, the volume of an Olympic-size swimming pool is 2,500 m 3 (88,000 cu ft). The average flow rate at the mouth of the Amazon is sufficient to fill more than 83 such pools each second.
At 165,250,000 square kilometers (63,800,000 square miles) in area (as defined with a southern Antarctic border), the Pacific Ocean is the largest division of the World Ocean and the hydrosphere and covers about 46% of Earth's water surface and about 32% of the planet's total surface area, larger than its entire land area (148,000,000 km 2 ...
Ocean – the four to seven largest named bodies of water in the World Ocean, all of which have "Ocean" in the name (see: Borders of the oceans for details). Sea has several definitions: [a] A division of an ocean, delineated by landforms, [6] currents (e.g., Sargasso Sea), or specific latitude or longitude boundaries. This includes but is not ...
An oceanographic water mass is an identifiable body of water with a common formation history which has physical properties distinct from surrounding water. Properties include temperature , salinity , chemical - isotopic ratios, and other physical quantities which are conservative flow tracers .
An ocean current is a continuous, directed flow of seawater caused by several forces acting upon the water. These include wind, the Coriolis effect, temperature and salinity differences. [15] Ocean currents are primarily horizontal water movements that have different origins such as tides for tidal currents, or wind and waves for surface currents.
The total transport of the ACC at Drake Passage is estimated to be around 135 Sv, or about 135 times the transport of all the world's rivers combined. There is a relatively small addition of flow in the Indian Ocean, with the transport south of Tasmania reaching around 147 Sv, at which point the current is probably the largest on the planet.
Aside from the oscillatory motions associated with tidal flow, there are two primary causes of large scale flow in the ocean: (1) thermohaline processes, which induce motion by introducing changes at the surface in temperature and salinity, and therefore in seawater density, and (2) wind forcing.