Oceans

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Oceans

• ESSTD2004

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1 Overview
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Exploration
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(No Transcript)
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Hydrologic Cycle
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Every State Is An Ocean State
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Heights and Depths
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Moon Topographyhttp//cosmology.berkeley.edu/Educ
ation/DEMOS/Lunar_Topography/Lunar_Map2.html
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Venus Topographyhttp//www.higp.hawaii.edu/hamil
ton/venus.html
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Jupiter an Ocean Planet
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Questions for Reflection

• All the water on land eventually reaches the
  ocean. Discuss how the area you live in impacts
  the environmental quality of the ocean. Can you
  describe areas that might add toxic material to
  the ocean? Are there ways in which your community
  works to protect the ocean?
• Debate whether more money should be spent to
  explore space or to explore the ocean floor.
• Explain how the oceans affect Earths weather.

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Investigations 1

• Closed-loop Mapping - Plan a round trip, log your
  travels and check your accuracy.
• http//physics.gallaudet.edu/navigate
• Shuttle Oceanography Look for interesting
  shuttle ocean photographs
• http//daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/CAMPAIGN_DOCS/OCDST/shut
  tle_oceanography_web/oss_contents.html
• Global Topographic Map Find interesting ocean
  basin features.
• http//physics.gallaudet.edu/etopo5/

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2 Plates and Oceans
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Ocean Basins
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Plate Boundaries
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Seafloor Spreading
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Atlantic and Pacific Basin Dynamics
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Plate Subduction
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Transform Fault
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Questions for Reflection

• Ocean fossils and layers of sedimentary rock can
  be found on the tops of mountains. What does
  that show about the Earths surface?
• Why is the seafloor lower than the surface of the
  continents?
• No oceanic crust older than about 160M years is
  known from the present oceans. Why are they so
  young?
• Would you expect lavas that erupt under water to
  cool more or less rapidly than those that erupt
  in air?
• What would the surface of the Earth be like
  without active plate tectonics?

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Questions for Reflection

• How did ancient civilizations explain the
  occurrence of earthquakes and volcanoes?
• Does plate tectonics operate on any other planet
  in our solar system?

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3 SeaWater
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The Water Molecule
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Water Energy Transformations
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Latent Heats of Water
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Seawater Composition
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Global Salinity Patterns
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T-S Graph
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Questions for Reflection

• List important properties of water.
• Describe thermohaline circulation.
• In what major process does water get transferred
  from the ocean to the atmosphere?
• Why are temperature and salinity the most
  important tracers of water masses?
• What resources are extracted from seawater?

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Investigations 3

• Measure Salinity using the GLOBE Program protocol
• Wave Speed and Depth Set up a rain gutter and
  measure the speed of waves in water depths of 1
  cm, 2 cm,
• Thermohaline Circulation and the Rayleigh-Taylor
  Instability Experiment with baby food jars
  studying mixing of cold, hot, salty, fresh water.
• Water On the Balance Does dipping your finger
  into water on a scale change the reading?

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4 Oceans and the Atmosphere
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Solar Cycle
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Effect of Solar Elevation
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Coriolis Effect
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Global Wind Patterns
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High Pressure Centers
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Low Pressure Centers
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Questions for Reflection

• Why are the cloud patterns we see in weather
  satellite images dominated by swirls?
• Why do hurricanes not form at the equator? Why
  do they not form over land? There are no
  hurricanes formed in the South Atlantic Ocean.
  Why?
• What special conditions are necessary for
  hurricanes to form?
• In what major process does water get transferred
  from the ocean to the atmosphere?
• Why is the concentration of carbon dioxide
  dissolved in seawater greater than in the
  atmosphere?

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Investigations 4

• Study of Hurricane Behavior link1 link2 Where
  and when do hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons occur in
  the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans
• http//weather.unisys.com/hurricane/
• http//meted.ucar.edu/hurrican/movncane/
• Global Wind Patterns Use Quickscat data to
  study the evolution of recent hurricanes (i.e.
  Isabel Sept 8-18, 2003) or plan your own ocean
  sailboat voyage.
• http//physics.gallaudet.edu/winds/web/
• Boat Races Build boats with foam and race in a
  raingutter using wind, mousetrap, rubberband,
  electric motor, power.
• CO2 and the Land and Ocean Biosphere What is
  the relation between the biosphere and
  atmospheric CO2? Contrast behavior in the
  Northern and Southern hemispheres.
• physics.gallaudet.edu/biosphere/co2_shtn.mov

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5 Currents
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Ocean Cross Section
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Gulf Stream
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Gulf Stream
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Ekman Transport
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Western Boundary Currents
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Gyre Dynamics
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Global Currents
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Upwelling
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Downwelling
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El Nino Events
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(No Transcript)
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Questions for Reflection

• What causes the principal open-ocean surface
  currents?
• Discuss why it is important to study ocean
  currents. Include in your discussion ways that
  plants, animals, and humans use ocean currents.
• Why does a wind driven current not flow in the
  same direction as the wind that causes it?

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Questions for Reflection

• If the thermal energy from solar radiation is
  largely absorbed by the surface layers, how can
  it be carried deeper?
• If higher average temperatures than now
  characterized the Earth's surface and the poles
  were ice free, what implications might such
  conditions have for ocean circulation?

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Investigations 5

• Water Current Patterns Study the seasonal
  patterns of the equatorial currents in the
  Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.
• http//physics.gallaudet.edu/currents/currents.htm
  l
• Drifters Pick a region with interesting
  geography or currents and track a drifter.
• http//w3.jcommops.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Argo
• Sea Surface Temperature Search for and estimate
  the intensity of El Nino events.
• http//physics.gallaudet.edu/sstdv/web/sstdv.html
• Ocean Basin Dynamics Experiment with a computer
  basin computer model to see how winds, ocean
  depth/size and the Coriolis force affects water
  currents and the sea level.
• http//physics.gallaudet.edu/obdv/obdv.html

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Credits and Resources

• Slides from Datastreme Ocean, M. Grant Gross,
  Elizabeth Gross, American Meteoroloigical
  Society, 2004.
• Quickscat and Sea Surface Temperature data from
  the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• podaac.jpl.nasa.gov
• Rayleigh-Taylor Instability Fascinating Gateway
  to the Study of Fluid Dynamics, Robert F.
  Benjamin, The Physics Teacher, Vol. 37, 1999, pp
  332-336
• Map Images for Class Graphing
• http//physics.gallaudet.edu/mapimages/