- 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 ...
Defined as the fractional change in atmospheric CO<sup>2</sup> divided by the fractional change in oceanic DIC after equilibrium has been reached. This factor characterizes the fraction of the CO<sup>2</sup> flux from the atmosphere to the mixed layer that will react to form carbonate and bicarbonate ions. This is also known as the Revelle factor.
Industry:Earth science
A mediterranean sea, centered at approximately 35° E and 44° N, that is the world's largest inland water basin. It has an area of about 461,000 km<sup>2</sup> and a volume of 537,000 km<sup>3</sup> with a mean depth of around 1200-1300 m, although depths greater than 2000 m are common in the central basin. The western part of the Black Sea is a wide shelf that gradually narrows to the south and breaks at around 100-150 m. In the rest of the basin the shelf doesn't exceed 10-15 km in width. It is connected to the Marmara Sea via the narrow (760 m wide) and shallow (27. 5 m maximum depth) Bosporus Strait, and further connects to the Mediterranean Sea via the long and narrow Dardanelles. It is also connected to the Sea of Azov to the north.
The Black Sea is a dilution basin due to a large freshwater input from the Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, Severskiy Donets and Don rivers (350 km<sup>3</sup>/yr). The flow through the Bosporus comprises a surface flow of low salinity water towards the Mediterranean (260 km<sup>3</sup>/yr) and an underlying return flow of salty Mediterranean water (120 km<sup>3</sup>/yr). Precipitation (140 km<sup>3</sup>/yr) and evaporation (350 km<sup>3</sup>/yr) close the freshwater budget. The volume averaged salinity is 22, with surface salinities in the central part ranging from 16-18 and increasing to 21-22. 5 at depths greater than 150-200 m. The surface temperatures range from 25° C in the summer to 6-8° C in the open sea, with the northwestern part and the Sea of Azov covered with ice during the winter. The deep water is 8-9° C year round. The upper 50 m are saturated with oxygen, the content of which diminishes until, at a depth of 150-200 m, hydrogen sulfide appears and renders the lower regions uninhabitable.
The most remarkable circulation feature is the cyclonicically meandering Rim Current, the interior of which is formed either by one elongated cell covering the entire basin or by two separate cyclonic cells occupying the western and eastern halves of the basin. The interior of the Western and Eastern Gyres contains a number of recurring cyclonic mesocale eddies. These are in contact with each other by a recurrent anticyclonic eddy called the Central Basin Eddy, a recurrent feature observed to form via the merging of two anticyclonic eddies pinched off from the baroclinically unstable Rim Current southeast of Crimea and off Cape Sinop.
The upper layer flow field also consists of several mesoscale eddies distributed along the periphery of the basin. The two most pronounced and persistent of such are the anticylonic Batumi Eddy in the southeastern corner of the basin and the anticyclonic Sevastapol Eddy in the continental shelf topography of the Danube Fan, west of the Crimean Peninsula. The latter has also been reported in the literature as the Trabzon Eddy. Two other quasi-permanent anticyclonic eddies are found along the Anatolian (Turkish) coastal belt. They are situated off the Sakarya and Kizilirmak Rivers and given their names. Another quasi-permanent anticyclonic feature is the Bosphorous Eddy located northwest of the Bosphorous-Black Sea junction. Two other recurrent coastal anticyclonic eddies have been identified between Sakarya Canyon and Cape Sinop. Along the northern coast, the anticyclonic Crimean and Causasian Eddies are the most pronounced mesoscale features, with the Kali-Akra Eddy a recurrent feature to the north of the Bosphorous Eddy.
The intermediate depth circulation is characterized by the disappearance of the Rim Current, the shifting of eddy centers, coalescence of eddies, persistence of some features for the whole water column but changes with depth in the structure of others, and more organized and large sub-basin features.
Industry:Earth science
Descriptive of organisms that are attached to or resting on bottom sediments, as opposed to pelagic.
Industry:Earth science
A field experiment of BALTEX. The objective of BASIS is to create and analyze an experimental data set for optimization and verification of coupled atmosphere-ice-ocean models. The specific objectives are:
* investigation of water budget, momentum and thermal interaction at air-ice, air-sea and sea-ice boundaries;
* investigation of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL);
* investigation of the ocean boundary layer (OBL); and
* validation of coupled atmosphere-ice-ocean models.
The intensive field phase of BASIS took place in the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea in a boundary zone between the open sea and the ice-covered sea from February 16 to March 7, 1998. Ships used included the Swedish RV Argos and the Finnish RV Aranda.
Industry:Earth science
The study of life in the oceans and how the physical and chemical properties of the ocean are influenced by marine life. The basic goal is to examine the distribution, abundance, and production of marine species and to obtain a basic understanding of the processes controlling them. Compare to chemical, geological and physical oceanography.
Industry:Earth science
An effect that results from the latitudinal variation of Rossby wave phase speed which is, in turn, due to the beta effect. If a line of Rossby waves were started along a straight eastern ocean boundary, then those at low latitudes would arrive at the western boundary before those at high latitudes.
Industry:Earth science
The Navier-Stokes equations can be derived from the Boltzmann equation by considering appropriate limits, i.e. Knudsen and Mach numbers tending to zero, and appropriate averaging procedures to define new coarse-grained variables (velocity and pressure) and associated transport coefficients (viscosity and density).
Industry:Earth science
A water mass that originates in the northern Bay of Bengal via monsoonal input from the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers. It is a low salinity water mass that spreads across the Bay in an approximately 100 m thick layer that produces a strong halocline beneath (above the overlying Indian Central Water) and keeps the surface salinity in the eastern parts of the Bay below 33. 0 throughout the year. Although there are no variations in temperature through the BBW layer, there are salinity variations below 50 m (and therefore above the main halocline) due to the fact that weak wind mixing erases variations over only about half the depth of the layer. This causes the permanent existence of a barrier layer. The low salinity surface water to the west of India, sometimes called East Arabian Sea Water (EAW), is usually subsumed under the BBW rubric due to its nearly identical properties.
Industry:Earth science
An ocean basin located off the eastern coast of Brazil in the west-central Atlantic Ocean. It is bounded to the north by the Belem (formerly Para) Rise, at which end there is also a broad depression called the Recife (formerly Pernambuco) Abyssal Plain. This has also been called the Tizard Deep.
Industry:Earth science
Descriptive of an an atmosphere or ocean in which surfaces of pressure and density intersect at some level or levels. The state of the real atmosphere and ocean, as opposed to barotropic. In a baroclinically stratified fluid total potential energy can be converted to kinetic energy.
Industry:Earth science
