Unit 3 - Oceans
Earth Space Science
Class Rules and Procedures
• Have ID on and around your neck upon entering class.
• Cell phones should be off and out of sight at all times
• Audio accessories should be put away as well
• Please do not eat in the classroom
• Use restroom between classes because I will issue no hall
passes.
• Respect yourself, peers and the adults in the room.
Preparing your journal for quarter 3
• Your table of contents for this quarter should be on
page 3 of your journal
• Odd numbered pages on the right side
• Even numbered pages on the left side
• First page to be used will be page 40 (left hand side)
Succeeding for the rest of the year
• No matter where you left last year you can still pass
this course
• Do the simple things (vocab, participation, follow
rules)
• Study for quizzes and tests
• Turn in your work that you completed.
• Its better to turn in incomplete work than no work at
all
Unit 3a – Causes of Ocean Circulation
• Today we will ease ourselves back into the process of learning
• We will watch an introductory video about pollution of our oceans by
plastics.
Unit 3a – The Causes of Ocean Circulation
Experience it yourself
• Fill up a baking pan with water, place a table fan
on one end and power it on high. The fan will
create surface waves pushing water in the
direction of air flow. This is an example of the
winds effect on oceans
• There is another aspect we will discuss today as
well
The Nature of the Oceans
• Both the winds and Coriolis
effect result in the
movements in the worlds
oceans.
• There are 5 Oceans
• Atlantic
• Pacific
• Indian
• Southern (or Antarctic)
• Arctic
The Nature of the Oceans
• Average Ocean depth is four
or five kilometers.
• The bottom of the ocean is
very dark, extremely cold and
has unimaginably high water
pressures.
• As deep as the oceans are,
they are much larger in
surface area covered across
the world.
The Warm Ocean and the Cold Ocean
• The ocean is layered by
temperature with an upper layer
of warm water and a much thicker
deep layer of cold water.
• At low latitudes (closer to the
equator), the change between
these two layers is at a depth of a
few hundred meters.
• The lowest parts of the Ocean has
temperatures close to 0o C.
The Warm Ocean and the Cold Ocean
• Between 200 m and 1000 m below
the surface, the temperature
decreases sharply with depth. This
zone of change is the thermocline.
• Density also changes with depth,
the area of rapid change of density
is called the pycnocline.
• The pycnocline and thermocline
are in the same ranges of water
depth.
pycnocline
The Circulation of the Oceans
• The warm shallow part of the ocean
that is above the thermocline is in a
continuous state of motion.
• The cold, deep part of the ocean is
also in continuous motion.
• The map to the right shows the
circulation patterns of the oceans.
• Warm currents are less dense and
closer to the surface, cold currents are
more dense and are deeper in the
oceans.
The Wind Stress of the Surface of the Ocean
• As wind blows across the oceans
surface it generates friction.
• This friction gets the water moving
in the direction of wind flow.
• This wind also creates waves on the
oceans surface.
• As the wind gets stronger, the
friction increases and the speed and
amount of moving water will
increase.
The Coriolis Effect
• The apparent curving of the path of winds
and ocean currents due to earth’s rotation is
called the Coriolis effect
• Because of this effect, in the Northern
hemisphere winds traveling north curve
east and winds traveling south curve west.
• These are opposite in the southern
hemisphere.
• This is why hurricanes in the northern
hemisphere rotate counterclockwise and in
the southern hemisphere they rotate
clockwise
Videos
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_8mw-1HYFg
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2mec3vgeaI
Complete the following on Page 40 of your
journal
On page 466 in the text book there is a writing prompt.
“Why does water move in the ocean?”
Record your ideas about this question in no less than a 5 sentence
paragraph base on what you learned today or from the textbook
on pages 468-472.
When you are finished begin working on your vocab terms on the
whiteboard.