(PHO) Physical Oceanography Module Overview

Image reads module Review Oceanography

Introduction

Physical Oceanography

This unit will focus on the relationship of temperature and salinity with density, ocean influenced weather patterns and how light and sound move through ocean water.

Essential Questions

Here are the essential questions this module will address:

  • What is the Coriolis Effect and why is important to understand?
  • What causes ocean currents and how are these currents interconnected?
  • What is the relationship between climate change, the greenhouse effect, and global warming?

Key Terms

Pay attention to these key terms as you work through the module:

  • Climate - Prevailing weather conditions of a region including temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloud cover and wind.
  • Thermocline - Layer of water in an ocean where the temperature gradient is greater than that of the warmer layer above and the colder layer below
  • Greenhouse gases - Any of the gases whose absorption of solar radiation is responsible for the atmospheric heating phenomenon
  • Global warming - An increase in the earth\'s average atmospheric temperature that causes corresponding changes in climate that may result from the greenhouse effect.
  • El Niño - A warm ocean current of variable intensity that develops after late December along the coast of Ecuador and Peru and sometimes causes catastrophic weather conditions
  • Coriolis Effect - The apparent deflection of a body in motion with respect to the earth as seen by an observer on the earth caused by the rotation of the earth and appearing as deflection to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and a deflection to the left in the Southern Hemisphere.
  • Gyres - A circular or spiral form found in circular ocean currents
  • Radiation - The process in which energy is emitted as particles or waves

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