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17 - The oceans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2014

Ian Strangeways
Ian Strangeways
Affiliation:
TerraData
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Summary

Nobody — not even Captain MacWhirr, who alone on deck had caught sight of a white line of foam coming on at such a height that he couldn't believe his eyes — nobody was to know the steepness of that sea and the awful depth of the hollow the hurricane had scooped out behind the running wall of water.

Joseph Conrad Typhoon.

The oceans: a history of their measurement

The entire heat capacity of the Earth's atmosphere is equivalent to about the top 3 m of the ocean's water (Houghton 1997). And below these 3 m lies another 2000—5000 m, with trenches down to 11000 m, with an average depth of 2000 m. In addition to their great depth and thermal mass, the oceans also cover 71% of the Earth's surface. A glance at a globe demonstrates that the Pacific Ocean alone covers almost half of the planet, and, viewed from the south, the 81% ocean-cover of the southern hemisphere is clearly evident. Given this dominance by the seas, it seems a reasonable expectation that the weather, and changes in climate, may well be driven as much, if not more, by the oceans than by the atmosphere and the continents. At the very least we should pay as much attention to measuring the weather above the oceans and the conditions down into their depths as we have done to measuring that over the land and up into the atmosphere.

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Measuring the Natural Environment , pp. 421 - 451
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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  • The oceans
  • Ian Strangeways, TerraData
  • Book: Measuring the Natural Environment
  • Online publication: 05 July 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139087254.017
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  • The oceans
  • Ian Strangeways, TerraData
  • Book: Measuring the Natural Environment
  • Online publication: 05 July 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139087254.017
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The oceans
  • Ian Strangeways, TerraData
  • Book: Measuring the Natural Environment
  • Online publication: 05 July 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139087254.017
Available formats
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