3: Studying the Oceans
- Page ID
- 45463
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CC1 Density and Layering in Fluids: Water in the oceans is arranged in layers according to water density.
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CC6 Salinity, Temperature, Pressure, and Water Density: Sea water density is controlled by temperature, salinity, and to a lesser extent pressure. Density is higher at lower temperatures, higher salinities, and higher pressures. Movements of water below the ocean surface layer are driven primarily by density differences.
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CC10 Modeling: Complex environmental systems, including the oceans and atmosphere, can best be studied by using conceptual and mathematical models.
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CC14 Phototrophy, Light, and Nutrients: Chemosynthesis and phototrophy (which includes photosynthesis) are the processes by which simple chemical compounds are made into the organic compounds of living organisms. The oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere is present entirely as a result of photosynthesis.
Over 80% of the ocean remains unexplored. Far less of the deep oceans have been fully explored. For example, humans have observed the deep ocean floor in real time only from submersibles or by video from remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and these observations are estimated to have covered less than 0.001% of the ocean floor. This chapter will introduce you to the tools and techniques used by oceanographers and explain why the oceans are so difficult to study. Some of the tools described in the chapter are now obsolete, but only by understanding how ingenious oceanographers need to be to overcome the difficulties of studying the oceans can we appreciate why we still do not know more about them. This understanding is also necessary for a full appreciation of the immense value of technologies, such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), advanced satellite sensors, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and computers that can rapidly analyze and graphically portray massive amounts of data.