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Oceans ESSTD2004 1: Overview Exploration Hydrologic Cycle Every State Is An Ocean State Heights and Depths Moon Topography http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/Education/DEMOS/Lunar_Topography/Lunar_Map2.html Venus Topography http://www.higp.hawaii.edu/~hamilton/venus.html Jupiter – an Ocean Planet 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 Earth’s weather. 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/s huttle_oceanography_web/oss_contents.html • Global Topographic Map – Find interesting ocean basin features. – http://physics.gallaudet.edu/etopo5/ 2: Plates and Oceans Ocean Basins Plate Boundaries Seafloor Spreading Atlantic and Pacific Basin Dynamics Plate Subduction Transform Fault Questions for Reflection • Ocean fossils and layers of sedimentary rock can • • • • be found on the tops of mountains. What does that show about the Earth’s 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? 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? 3: SeaWater The Water Molecule Water Energy Transformations Latent Heats of Water Seawater Composition Global Salinity Patterns T-S Graph 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? 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? 4: Oceans and the Atmosphere Solar Cycle Effect of Solar Elevation Coriolis Effect Global Wind Patterns High Pressure Centers Low Pressure Centers 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? 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 5: Currents Ocean Cross Section Gulf Stream Gulf Stream Ekman Transport Western Boundary Currents Gyre Dynamics Global Currents Upwelling Downwelling El Nino Events 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? 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? 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.html • 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 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/