Exam 2 Flashcards
Why do we taste “salt” in ocean water?
overwhelming amount of sodium and chloride
What are the 2 categories that ocean salt ions are fall in?
Cations and Anions
What are the Cations in the ocean water?
Sodium, Magnesium, Potassium, Calcium
What are the Anions in the ocean water?
Chloride, Sulfate, Carbonate & Bicarbonate
What is a common mineral dissolved in water?
silica
What is the chemical composition of the ocean?
Salts 35 grams = 3.5% dissolved solids = 35 parts per thousand (0/00)
Where do the oceans’ salts come from?
Erosion, river water, volcanic activity, groundwater, hydrothermal vents
Where do calcium, bicarbonate & carbonate come from?
shells and corals
Where does magnesium, potassium, sulfate come from?
Clays
What are the three things that make up a profile of ocean water?
Temperature, Salinity, Density
What is the term used for temperature in the ocean?
Thermocline
What is the term used for density in the ocean?
Pycnocline
What is the term used for salinity in the ocean?
Halocine
What is a combination of cold temperature and saltier conditions that leads to an increased density with depth?
pycnocline
What proves that it tends to get colder as depth increases?
Thermocline
What proves that it tends to get saltier with depth?
Halocine
What are water masses?
bodies of water identifiable by their salinity and temperature
What happens when water masses have different densities?
they stack on top of each other
What is the diagram used to figure out if water masses will mix or stratify (layer)?
The T&S Diagram
What is the term used to describe temperature and salinity and its circulation?
Thermohaline
What are the three important aspects of the ocean?
sound, light, and biological pump
What is a biological pump?
the balancing of ocean water chemistry by plants and animals
How does sound travel through the ocean?
waves
What does sound travel faster in, water or air?
water
What does sound travel faster in, salt water or freshwater?
salt
How is sound velocity determined?
the interplay of salinity and temperature
What is the layer called where sound is focused and can travel long distances without being absorbed?
SOFAR channel
Where is the SOFAR channel located?
1000 meters deep
How can sound escape the SOFAR channel?
at a sharp angle
What mammals use the SOFAR channel to communicate?
Whales
What has proven to show that ship traffic noise is disrupting marine mammal communication?
bioacoustics
Where is light absorbed in the ocean?
600 meters
What is the euphotic zone?
the surface water (upper 70 meters) receives the most amount of light, photosynthesis
What are the depths from 70 to 600 meters that have reduced amounts of light, enough for vision called?
Disphotic zone
The aphotic zone is located where?
below 600 meters
What end of the visible light spectrum shows the least penetration of water?
Red
What end of the visible light spectrum shows the most penetration (600m)?
Blue/Violet
What can harvest colors at different depths?
Phytoplankton
What happens to animals that live beyond the range of light?
adaptations, i.e. enlarged eyes, bioluminescence
How does oxygen enter the ocean?
plants or the atmosphere
What are some examples of photosynthetic organisms?
Phytoplankton, Large Algae, Photosynthetic bacteria
What is respiration?
a chemical process that uses oxygen and carbohydrates to produce carbon dioxide and water vapor
What percentage of CO2 on Earth is in the Ocean?
60%
pH measures what?
The acidity or alkalinity of a substance
What is the pH of the ocean?
8
What are the three things that drive atmospheric circulation?
Latitudinal differences in heat received by the Earth from the sun, differences in heating and cooling of continents and oceans, the Coriolis effect
What do the tropics have?
heat surplus
What do the poles have?
heat deficit
Atmosphere transfers about how much heat from the topics to the poles?
2/3
When convection cells transport heat in the atmosphere, what happens?
Warm air rises, Cold air sinks
The linear distance traveled by a point on the Earth’s surface depends on what?
latitude
These points travel faster here than at any other points at other latitudes?
equator
The Coriolis effect deflects objects in motion clockwise in this hemisphere?
Northern
The Coriolis effect deflects objects in motion counter clockwise in this hemisphere?
Southern
At the equator this is non existent but is greatest at the poles?
Coriolis effect
What are the three atmospheric circulation cells?
Polar, Ferrel, and Hadley
What circulation cell has rising air in the tropics and sinking air at mid-latitutdes?
Hadley
The Ferrel cell does what?
governs circulation at mid-latitudes
What happens to a polar cell?
the dry, cold air decends
What are gyres?
Large-scale winds set up large-scale circular ocean currents
What gyre is narrow, fast and warm?
North Atlantic Gyre
What gyre is cold, broad and slow?
Canary Current
What connects the North Atlantic Gyre and Canary Currents?
North Atlantic and the North Equatorial Currents
Where are thermohaline circulation patterns present?
below 600m
Why are there different sea levels in the gyres?
they have higher elevation in the middle (“mound”) than on the edges
Around the edges of subtropical gyres, what type of sea level is it?
low
High sea levels occur where?
west side of subtropical gyres
Wind driven currents flow perpendicular to the wind direction because?
the effect of friction the water has on one another
What direction does the 90 degree turn in the northern hemisphere?
Right
What direction does the 90 degree turn in the southern hemisphere?
Left
What is the Ekman spiral?
the spiral effect has in the water
Geostrophic flow is what?
when the “mound” of a gyre is maintained by the Coriolis effect and gravity
What is it called when water moves up to the surface?
upwelling
What is it called when water sinks down?
downwelling
What are the two water masses that descend from the surface near the poles?
Atlantic Deep Water and Antarctic Bottom Water
What is the study of compounds that do not contain carbon; however, some non-living matter, diamonds for example, contains carbon and therefore falls outside the rule?
inorganic chemistry
What is organic chemistry?
the study of compounds that occur naturally from plants and animals and inorganic chemistry as the study of compounds created by non-living elements such as those found in minerals
Most marine vertebrates are able to regulate the salt and water content in their bodies through a chemical process called?
Osmoregulation
What is osmosis?
where water diffuses from high salt concentration to low salt concentration between permeable membranes
As density increases….
salinity increases
What is a cline?
a region where the temperature, density, or salinity change rapidly
Thermohaline circulation is also referred to as?
the Global Conveyor Belt
What is a wave?
a disturbance caused by the movement of energy through a medium
A wave is not a….
current
What is the highest part of the wave?
Crest
What is the distance between adjacent crests?
Wavelength
What is frequency?
the number of wave crests passing by in a second
What is a trough?
the lowest part of the wave
What is wave height?
vertical distance from the trough to the crest
What is the time needed for the wave to move a distance of one wavelength?
period
What is the formula for wave speed?
Wave length / Wave period
What is the formula for wave steepness?
Wave height / Wave length
What are the four things ocean waves are classified by?
Disturbing force (create)
Restoring force (flatten)
influence of disturbing force
wavelength
What are some examples of disturbing forces?
wind, low atmospheric pressure due to storms, disturbance of sea floor, density contrast of water masses, explosions and landslides
What are some examples of restoring forces?
gravity, surface tension, mixing
What is the disturbing force of a seiche?
changes in atmospheric pressure
What is the wavelength of gravity?
> 2cm
What is also referred to as “capillary waves”?
surface tension
What is the wavelength of surface tension?
< 2cm
What is it called when water particles do not move along with most waves?
Orbital motion
Deep water waves occur in water deeper than?
1/2 wavelength
Shallow water waves occur in water shallower than?
1/20th wavelength
What is fetch?
the distance over which wind blows
What is a seiche?
a standing wave where water is pushed to the northeast side of a lake and comes back
What are the tops of the waves being blown off by the wind?
Whitecaps
What waves leave the region of formation last?
Short waves
Which waves leave the region of formation first?
Long waves
What happens when two waves meet?
they interfere
What is destructive interference?
waves cancel each other out, forming smaller waves
What is constructive interference?
waves add together, forming bigger waves (can produce very dangerous “rogue” waves)
Deep water waves become shallow water waves when approaching the shore, what happens?
The wave “feels” the bottom and begins to lose energy
What is the ratio of a wave when it breaks on shore?
1:7 ratio of height to wavelength
What are hollow tubes formed between the falling crest and the foot of the wave?
plunging breakers
What are huge waves that move slowly beneath the surface and have huge heights and wavelengths?
Density waves
What has an effect on how the wave will break upon the shore?
slope of the seafloor
Which type of breaker - spilling, plunging, or surging – will cause the most coastal erosion?
surging - slams into the beach at full speed
Which type of breaker deposits the most sand onshore?
spiling
The approximate speed of a wave train can be calculated from the average period of the waves in the train, using a simple formula:
speed (in knots, which are nautical miles per hour) = 1.5 x period (in seconds)
What are the two things that gravitational attraction depends on?
masses and distances between
What are the strongest tides forced by?
the Earth and moon (first)
the Earth and sun
A tide has a wavelength equal to what?
1/2 Earth’s circumference
What is the really important factor regarding gravitational attraction?
distance
What pulls each point on Earth toward the center of the moon?
gravity
Gravitation force….?
varies in strength, nor oriented in the same direction
Inertia pulls toward where?
outward
Inertial force…..?
same strength, oriented in same direction
What is created due to gravity and inertia pulling at opposite directions?
Bulges
High and low tides occur when?
as the Earth spins beneath the bulges (high) and away from them (low)
What type of tide is created when solar and lunar tidal bulges are added?
spring tide
What type of tide is created when solar and lunar tidal bulges are cancelled?
Neap tide
In a spring tide, what is the difference between high and low tides?
large
In a neap tide, what is the difference between high and low tides?
small
What kind of tide occurs when the sun, moon, and earth line up?
Spring
What kind of tide occurs when Earth, moon, and sun are at right angles?
Neap
Spring and Neap tides occur how many times a month?
2
Tides behave like what?
Shallow water waves
What characterize dynamic tides?
propagate with ocean basins, behave like shallow water waves, speed of tidal propagation is slowed by friction
What is a semidiurnal tide?
two high and two low tides per day (about same height)
What kind of tide has one high and one low tide per day?
Diurnal
What is a mixed tide?
two high and two low tides per day (different heights)
Why do tide crests rotate?
Coriolis effect
What are amphidromic points?
no-tide points within ocean basins
How do animals make use of the tides?
reproductive cycle, egg hatching, move young safely out to sea
In a semi-confined basin, tides can set up as what?
amphidromic systems or slosh in and out of the basin
What happens when strong winds blow for a long time from one direction across an enclosed basin?
Seiche
