Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Thermohaline circulation. Oceanography (from Ancient Greek ὠκεανός (ōkeanós) 'ocean' and γραφή (graphḗ) 'writing'), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology.
The atmosphere of Earth is composed of a layer of gas mixture that surrounds the Earth's planetary surface (both lands and oceans), known collectively as air, with variable quantities of suspended aerosols and particulates (which create weather features such as clouds and hazes), all retained by Earth's gravity.
At the ocean-atmosphere interface, the ocean and atmosphere exchange fluxes of heat, moisture and momentum. Heat. The important heat terms at the surface are the sensible heat flux, the latent heat flux, the incoming solar radiation and the balance of long-wave radiation. In general, the tropical oceans will tend to show a net gain of heat, and ...
Important physical processes within the water cycle include (in alphabetical order): Advection: The movement of water through the atmosphere. [6] Without advection, water that evaporated over the oceans could not precipitate over land. Atmospheric rivers that move large volumes of water vapor over long distances are an example of advection. [7]
The Pacific Ocean cell plays a particularly important role in Earth's weather. This entirely ocean-based cell comes about as the result of a marked difference in the surface temperatures of the western and eastern Pacific. Under ordinary circumstances, the western Pacific waters are warm, and the eastern waters are cool.
This deep ocean water circulation is relatively slow and water at the bottom of the ocean can be isolated from the ocean surface and atmosphere for hundreds or even a few thousand years. [113] This circulation has important impacts on the global climate system and on the uptake and redistribution of pollutants and gases such as carbon dioxide ...
Atmospheric physics is the application of physics to the study of the atmosphere. Atmospheric physicists attempt to model Earth's atmosphere and the atmospheres of the other planets using fluid flow equations, chemical models, radiation balancing, and energy transfer processes in the atmosphere and underlying oceans and land.
The exchange between the ocean and atmosphere can take centuries, and the weathering of rocks can take millions of years. Carbon in the ocean precipitates to the ocean floor where it can form sedimentary rock and be subducted into the Earth's mantle. Mountain building processes result in the return of this geologic carbon to the Earth's surface.