Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The deuterium to hydrogen ratio for ocean water on Earth is known very precisely to be (1.5576 ± 0.0005) × 10 −4. [35] This value represents a mixture of all of the sources that contributed to Earth's reservoirs, and is used to identify the source or sources of Earth's water.
The ocean contains 97% of Earth's water and is the primary component of Earth's hydrosphere and is thereby essential to life on Earth. The ocean influences climate and weather patterns, the carbon cycle, and the water cycle by acting as a huge heat reservoir. (Full article...) Waves in Pacifica, California. A sea is a large body of salt water.
Most water in Earth's atmosphere and crust comes from saline seawater, while fresh water accounts for nearly 1% of the total. The vast bulk of the water on Earth is saline or salt water, with an average salinity of 35‰ (or 3.5%, roughly equivalent to 34 grams of salts in 1 kg of seawater), though this varies slightly according to the amount of runoff received from surrounding land.
Sea level is affected not only by the volume of the ocean basin, but also by the volume of water in them. Factors that influence the volume of the ocean basins are: Plate tectonics and the volume of mid-ocean ridges: the depth of the seafloor increases with distance to a ridge, as the oceanic lithosphere cools and thickens.
The ocean is a major driver of Earth's water cycle. Ocean water represents the largest body of water within the global water cycle (oceans contain 97% of Earth's water). Evaporation from the ocean moves water into the atmosphere to later rain back down onto land and the ocean. [68] Oceans have a significant effect on the biosphere.
At around 600 miles wide and up to 6,000 meters (nearly four miles) deep, the Drake is objectively a vast body of water. To us, that is. To the planet as a whole, less so.
Strictly speaking, a sea is a body of water (generally a division of the world ocean) partly or fully enclosed by land, [4] though "the sea" refers also to the oceans. Saline water covers approximately 361,000,000 km 2 (139,000,000 sq mi) and is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas, with the ocean covering ...
Over time, the water returns to the ocean, to continue the water cycle. The ocean plays a key role in the water cycle. The ocean holds "97% of the total water on the planet; 78% of global precipitation occurs over the ocean, and it is the source of 86% of global evaporation". [2]