- Industry: Education
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Founded in 1876, Texas A&M University is a U.S. public and comprehensive university offering a wide variety of academic programs far beyond its original label of agricultural and mechanical trainings. It is one of the few institutions holding triple federal designations as a land-, sea- and ...
A part of the western basin of the Mediterranean Sea that extends from the Gibraltar Strait Alboran Islands covering an area between about 35° and 38° N and 6° N and the Equator. This sea is dominated by a wavelike front with two anticyclonic gyres in the western and eastern parts of the basin, which at times disappear completely. The Algerian Current is closely tied to the dynamics associated with the eastern anticyclonic gyre. It abuts the Balearic Sea to the east.
Industry:Earth science
A concept originated in the 1960s following a detailed study of the Polar Front. This was later transformed into the concept of the Polar Frontal Zone.
Industry:Earth science
A taut-line mooring with sensors measuring surface winds, air temperature, relative humidity, sea surface temperature, and ten subsurface temperatures to a depth of 500 m. Daily mean data are telemetered to shore in near real-time via NOAA's polar orbiting satellites and Service Argos. The standard ATLAS mooring has a design lifetime of one year, with over 500 having been deployed sine 1984.
Industry:Earth science
Those oscillations in any atmospheric field whose periods are integral fractions of either a lunar or a solar day. These differ from ocean tides in several ways, one of which is that atmospheric tides are excited not only by the tidal gravitational potential of the sun and moon but also (and to the larger extent) by daily variations in solar heating. Another difference is that the atmosphere is a spherical shell and thus there are no coastal boundaries to worry about. Finally, the response of the atmosphere to tidal forcing is by means of internal gravity waves rather than the barotropic surface waves of the sea.
Industry:Earth science
A finite element solution technique for fluid flow problems with moving interfaces, e. G. moving walls, free surfaces, etc. In the ALE method, the newly updated free surface is determined purely via the Lagrangian method, i.e. by the velocities of the fluid particles at the free surface. The nodes in the interior of the domain are displaced in an arbitrarily prescribed way to obtain a mesh of proper shape and to avoid mesh crossing.
Industry:Earth science
An ocean basin located in the western South Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Argentina. It is separated from the Brazil Basin to the north by the Rio Grande Rise and includes the Argentine Abyssal Plain.
Industry:Earth science
A body of water in the northeastern corner of the Indian Ocean that lies to the west of the Malay Peninsula, the north of Sumatra, the east of the Andaman Islands, and the south of the Irrawaddy Delta in Burma. It stretches about 650 km from west to east and 1200 km from north to south. The Andaman communicates with the westward lying Bay of Bengal through several channels between the chain of islands that stretches along 93° E. , including the Preparis (200 m deep), Ten Degree (800 m deep) and Great (1800 m deep) Channels. It is connected with the Australasian Mediterranean Sea via the Malacca Strait between Thailand and Sumatra. It has been variously estimated to have an area of 600,000 to 800,000 km2 and an average and maximum depth of, respectively, 870-1100 m and 4200 m.
The temperature of the surface waters fluctuates mildly from a monthly average of about 30° C in the summer months to one of about 27. 5 in the winter months. They drop off with depth to about 5° C and 2000 m. The surface salinities exhibit strong seasonal variations due to an extremely large freshwater influx from the Irrawaddy and Salween rivers during monsoon season. In the northern part the salinities range from about 20 during the monsoon months from June to November to about 32 from Demember to May. These grade to a fairly constant 33. 5 in the southwest end and to a maximum of about 35 near 1500 m depth.
The steadiest current is the inflow through the Malacca Straits, averaging around 1/3-2 knots through the year. The monsoons controls the currents elswhere, driving inflow waters from the Bay of Bengal through the western channels from June to August during the southwest monsoon. This also pushes the Malaccan inflow against the Sumatran coast and forces some Andaman sea water through the Straits. When these winds die southwestward currents gradually form that are maintained and enhanced by the northeast monsoon from December through February. A more sudden shift is seen from March through May when the southwest monsoons begins anew.
Industry:Earth science
A front and an associated current that separate the fresher water flowing in from the Atlantic Ocean via the Gibraltar Strait from the saltier Mediterranean Sea water to the west. The incoming water flows eastward as a jet, breaks into one or two large eddies of around 150 km diameter, and then is deflected to the right (the south) by the Coriolis force where it encounters the African coast and continues flowing eastward as the Algerian Current.
Industry:Earth science
One of three geomorphologically distinct types of coral reefs, the other two being fringing reefs and barrier reefs. An atoll is an annular reef formed around a subsiding volcanic island.
Industry:Earth science
A process by which incident radiation is taken into a body and retained without reflection or transmission. It increases either the internal or the kinetic energy of the molecules or atoms composing the absorbing medium.
Industry:Earth science
