Related topics: climate change , carbon dioxide , climate , global warming , greenhouse gas
Ocean
hideAn ocean (from Greek Ωκεανός, Okeanos (Oceanus)) is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface (an area of some 361 million square kilometers) is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas. More than half of this area is over 3,000 meters (9,800 ft) deep. Average oceanic salinity is around 35 parts per thousand (ppt) (3.5%), and nearly all seawater has a salinity in the range of 30 to 38 ppt.
For more information about Ocean, read the full article at
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News tagged with ocean
Beyond sunlight: Explorers census 17,650 ocean species between edge of darkness and black abyss (w/ Video)
Nov 22, 2009 |
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Census of Marine Life scientists have inventoried an astonishing abundance, diversity and distribution of deep sea species that have never known sunlight - creatures that somehow manage a living in a frigid ...
Earth's early ocean cooled more than a billion years earlier than thought (w/ Video)
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 11, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The scalding-hot sea that supposedly covered the early Earth may in fact never have existed, according to a new study by Stanford University researchers who analyzed isotope ratios in 3.4 ...
Controversial new climate change results
Nov 10, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of CO2 has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of CO2 having risen from about 2 billion ...
Newly Discovered Fat Molecule: An Undersea Killer with an Upside
Nov 05, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A chemical culprit responsible for the rapid, mysterious death of phytoplankton in the North Atlantic Ocean has been found by collaborating scientists at Rutgers University and the Woods Hole ...
African desert rift confirmed as new ocean in the making
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 02, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- In 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed the rift was the beginning of a new ocean as two parts of the African continent pulled ...
Ancient ocean chemistry: Effects of biological oxygen production 100 million years before it accumulated in atmosphere
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 29, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists widely accept that around 2.4 billion years ago, the Earth's atmosphere underwent a dramatic change when oxygen levels rose sharply. Called the "Great Oxidation Event" (GOE), the ...
Jupiter's Moon Europa Has Enough Oxygen For Life
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 16, 2009 |
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New research suggests that there is plenty of oxygen available in the subsurface ocean of Europa to support oxygen-based metabolic processes for life similar to that on Earth. In fact, there may be enough ...
Deep-Sea Microbes May Answer Long-Standing Question About Earth's Nitrogen Cycle
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 15, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have identified an unexpected metabolic ability in a symbiotic community of deep-sea microorganisms. It may help solve a lingering mystery about the world's nitrogen cycle.
Planet's nitrogen cycle overturned by 'tiny ammonia eater of the seas'
Sep 30, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- It's not every day you find clues to the planet's inner workings in aquarium scum. But that's what happened a few years ago when University of Washington researchers cultured a tiny organism from the bottom ...
Mystery Solved: Marine Microbe Is Source of Rare Nutrient
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Sep 29, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (23) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of microscopic marine microbes, called phytoplankton, by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of South Carolina has solved a ten-year-old ...
Global warming may dent El Nino's protective shield from Atlantic hurricanes, increase droughts
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Sep 23, 2009 |
3.1 / 5 (12) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- El Niño, the periodic eastern Pacific phenomenon credited with shielding the United States and Caribbean from severe hurricane seasons, may be overshadowed by its brother in the central Pacific ...
Could salt crusts be key ingredient in cooking up prebiotic molecules?
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Sep 18, 2009 |
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German scientists investigating the complex chemical mixture thought to be present in the early Earth’s oceans have found that amino acids can be 'cooked' into many other important chemical building blocks ...
Dead Ahead: Similar Early Warning Signals of Change in Climate, Ecosystems, Financial Markets, Human Health
Sep 02, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- What do abrupt changes in ocean circulation and Earth's climate, shifts in wildlife populations and ecosystems, the global finance market and its system-wide crashes, and asthma attacks and ...
Two More Earth's Chandler Wobble Jumps Revealed, Last in 2005
Sep 02, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The Chandler Wobble is a small variation in the rotation of the Earth on its axis. It has been known for some time that the phase of the Chandler Wobble jumped by 180 degrees in the 1920s, ...
Gulf exploration yields evidence of raw materials used by early Americans
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Aug 31, 2009 |
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In one of the more dramatic moments of an underwater archaeological survey co-led by Mercyhurst College archaeologist James Adovasio along Florida's Gulf Coast this summer, Andy Hemmings stood on an inundated ...
