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A photo of the Ocean water by apasciuto –

10 Amazing Facts about the Ocean

The ocean, also known as the sea or the world ocean, is a body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth’s water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the world ocean is conventionally divided.

Separate names are used to identify five different areas of the ocean: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Antarctic/ or Southern, and Arctic. Seawater covers approximately 361,000,000 km2 which is equivalent to 139,000,000 sq mi of the planet.

The ocean is the principal component of Earth’s hydrosphere, and therefore integral to life on Earth. Acting as a huge heat reservoir, the ocean influences climate and weather patterns, the carbon cycle, and the water cycle. In the article are the top te amazing facts about the ocean.

1. The ocean is divided into zones

Oceanographers divide the ocean into different vertical and horizontal zones based on physical and biological conditions. The pelagic zone consists of the water column from the surface to the ocean floor throughout the open ocean. The water column is further categorized into other zones depending on the depth and on how much light is present.

The photic zone includes water from the surface to a depth of 1% of the surface light (about 200 m in the open ocean), where photosynthesis can occur. This makes the photic zone the most biodiverse. Photosynthesis by plants and microscopic algae (free-floating phytoplankton) creates organic matter using light, water, carbon dioxide, and nutrients.

Ocean photosynthesis creates 50% of the oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere. This upper sunlit zone is the origin of the food supply which sustains most of the ocean ecosystem. Light penetrates to a depth of only a few hundred meters; the remaining ocean below is cold and dark. The continental shelf where the ocean approaches dry land is more shallow, with a depth of a few hundred meters or less.

2. Ocean temperatures depend on the amount of solar radiation reaching the ocean surface.

In the tropics, surface temperatures can rise to over 30 °C. Near the poles where sea ice forms, the temperature in equilibrium is about −2 °C. Deep ocean temperature is between −2 °C and 5 °C in all parts of the ocean. Water continuously circulates in the oceans creating ocean currents.

These directed movements of seawater are generated by forces acting upon the water, including temperature differences, atmospheric circulation, the Coriolis effect and differences in salinity. Tidal currents originate from tides, while surface currents are caused by wind and waves. Major ocean currents include the Gulf Stream, Kuroshio Current, Agulhas Current and Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

Collectively, currents move enormous amounts of water and heat around the globe. This circulation significantly impacts global climate and the uptake and redistribution of pollutants such as carbon dioxide by moving these contaminants from the surface into the deep ocean.

3. Ocean water contains large quantities of dissolved gases

The gases include oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. This gas exchange takes place at the ocean surface and solubility depends on the temperature and salinity of the water. The increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to fossil fuel combustion leads to higher concentrations in ocean water, resulting in ocean acidification. The ocean provides society with important environmental services, including climate regulation.

4. The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest Ocean in the World

The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth’s five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Oceania in the west and the Americas in the east.

At 165,250,000 square kilometres equivalent to 63,800,000 square miles in the area as defined by a southern Antarctic border, this largest division of the World Ocean and the hydrosphere covers about 46 per cent of Earth’s water surface and about 32 per cent of its total surface area, larger than Earth’s entire land area combined 148,000,000 km2.

The centres of both the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere, as well as the oceanic pole of inaccessibility, are in the Pacific Ocean. Ocean circulation subdivides it into two largely independent volumes of water, which meet at the equator: the North Pacific Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean. The Galápagos and Gilbert Islands, while straddling the equator, are deemed wholly within the South Pacific.

5. Apart from gravity and water density ocean water moves by Coriolis Effect

Perhaps the most critical impact of the Coriolis effect is in the large-scale dynamics of the oceans and the atmosphere. In meteorology and oceanography, it is convenient to postulate a rotating frame of reference wherein the Earth is stationary.

In accommodation of that provisional postulation, the centrifugal and Coriolis forces are introduced. Their relative importance is determined by the applicable Rossby numbers. Tornadoes have high Rossby numbers, so, while tornado-associated centrifugal forces are quite substantial, Coriolis forces associated with tornadoes are for practical purposes negligible.

Because surface ocean currents are driven by the movement of wind over the water’s surface, the Coriolis force also affects the movement of ocean currents and cyclones as well. Many of the ocean’s largest currents circulate warm, high-pressure areas called gyres.

Though the circulation is not as significant as that in the air, the deflection caused by the Coriolis effect is what creates the spiralling pattern in these gyres. The spiralling wind pattern helps the hurricane form. The stronger the force from the Coriolis effect, the faster the wind spins and picks up additional energy, increasing the strength of the hurricane.

6. The Pacific Ocean contains the largest number of oceans in the world

The ocean certainly s likely to have the most islands in the world due to its big area in km2. It has an area of 165,250,000 square kilometres as defined by a southern Antarctic border. The Pacific contains about 25,000 islands. Not all the other oceans in the world combined can reach the number of oceans than those of the Pacific Ocean.

7. The origin of Earth’s oceans is unknown

Scientists believe that a sizable quantity of water would have been in the material that formed the Earth. Water molecules would have escaped Earth’s gravity more easily when it was less massive during its formation. This is called an atmospheric escape.

During planetary formation Earth possibly had magma oceans. Subsequently outgassing, volcanic activity and meteorite impacts, according to current theories, produced an early atmosphere of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapour. The early oceans might have been significantly hotter than today and appeared green due to their high iron content.

Oceans are thought to have formed in the Hadean aeon and may have been the cause for the emergence of life. Plate tectonics, post-glacial rebound, and sea level rise continually change the coastline and structure of the world ocean. A global ocean has existed in one form or another on Earth for aeons. Since its formation, the ocean has taken many conditions and shapes with many past ocean divisions and potentially at times covering the whole globe. All in all, the origin of Earth’s oceans is unknown.

8. The ocean fills Earth’s oceanic basins

Earth’s oceanic basins cover different geologic provinces of Earth’s oceanic crust as well as continental crust. As such it covers mainly Earth’s structural basins, but also the continental shelf. Every ocean basin has a mid-ocean ridge, which creates a long mountain range beneath the ocean.

Together they form the global mid-oceanic ridge system that features the longest mountain range in the world. The longest continuous mountain range is 65,000 km. This underwater mountain range is several times longer than the longest continental mountain range—the Andes. Oceanographers state that less than 20% of the oceans have been mapped.

9. Most of the ocean is blue

Most of the ocean is blue, but in some places, the ocean is blue-green, green, or even yellow to brown. Blue ocean colour is a result of several factors. First, water preferentially absorbs red light, which means that blue light remains and is reflected out of the water. Red light is most easily absorbed and thus does not reach great depths, usually to less than 50 meters.

Blue light, in comparison, can penetrate up to 200 meters. Second, water molecules and very tiny particles in ocean water preferentially scatter blue light more than the light of other colours. Blue light scattering by water and tiny particles happens even in the very clearest ocean water and is similar to blue light spreading in the sky.

10. The average depth of the oceans is about 4 km

More precisely the average depth is 3,688 meters (12,100 ft).[40] Nearly half of the world’s marine waters are over 3,000 meters deep. “Deep ocean,” which is anything below 200 meters, covers about 66% of Earth’s surface.

The deepest point in the ocean is the Mariana Trench, located in the Pacific Ocean near the Northern Mariana Islands. Its maximum depth has been estimated to be 10,971 meters. The British naval vessel Challenger II surveyed the trench in 1951 and named the deepest part of the trench the “Challenger Deep”. In 1960, the Trieste successfully reached the bottom of the trench, manned by a crew of two men.