Dictionary:

oceanography

  (ō'shə-nŏg'rə-fē)

The exploration and scientific study of the ocean and its phenomena. Also called oceanology.

The science of the sea; including physical oceanography, marine chemistry, marine geology, and marine biology. The need to know more about the impact of marine pollution and possible effects of the exploitation of marine resources, together with the role of the ocean in possible global warming and climate change, means that oceanography is an important scientific discipline. Improved understanding of the sea has been essential in such diverse fields as fisheries conservation, the exploitation of underwater oil and gas reserves, and coastal protection policy, as well as in national defense strategies. The scientific benefits include not only improved understanding of the oceans and their inhabitants, but important information about the evolution of the Earth and its tectonic processes, and about the global environment and climate, past and present, as well as possible future changes. See also Climate history; Coastal engineering; Marine mining; Marine sediments; Maritime meteorology; Oil and gas, offshore.

The traditional basis of modern oceanography is the hydrographic station. Hydrographic studies are still carried out at regular intervals, with the research vessel in a specific position. Seawater temperature, depth, and salinity can be measured continuously by a probe towed behind the ship. The revolution in electronics has provided not only a new generation of instruments for studying the sea but also new ways of collecting and analyzing the data they produce. Computers are employed in gathering and processing data in all fields, and are also used in the creation of mathematical models to aid in understanding. Much information can also be gained by remote sensing using satellites, which are also a valuable navigational aid. These provide data on sea surface temperature and currents, and on marine productivity. Satellite altimetry gives information on wave height and winds and even bottom topography (because this affects sea level). Deep-sea cameras and submersibles now permit visual evidence of creatures in remote depths. See also Hydrography; Oceanographic vessels; Marine ecology; Remote sensing; Satellite navigation systems; Seawater.

Since the early 1900s, all recorded ocean depths have been incorporated in the General Bathymetric Chart of the Ocean. The amount of data available increased greatly with the introduction of continuous echo sounders; subsequently, side-scan sonar permitted very detailed topographical surveys to be made of the ocean floor. The features thus revealed, in particular the midocean ridges (spreading centers) and deep trenches (subduction zones), are integral to the theory of plate tectonics. An important discovery made toward the end of the twentieth century was the existence of hydrothermal vents, where hot mineral-rich water gushes from the Earth's interior. The deposition of minerals at these sites and the discovery of associated ecosystems make them of potential economic as well as great scientific interest. See also Echo sounder; Hydrothermal vent; Marine geology; Mid-Oceanic Ridge; Plate tectonics; Sonar; Subduction zones.

n. the study of the sea, embracing and integrating all knowledge pertaining to the sea and its physical boundaries, the chemistry and physics of seawater, and marine biology.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

The study of the oceans. This covers the shape, depth, and distribution of oceans, their composition, life forms, ecology, and water currents, and their legal status.

For more information on oceanography, visit Britannica.com.

Although oceanography is a twentieth-century scientific discipline forged from European roots, several American developments in the nineteenth century contributed to its modern formation. First, federal interests in mapping the coastlines, charting seaports, and exploring the vast expanse of the United States inspired the work of the U.S. Coast Survey and the Navy's Depot of Charts and Instruments and the U.S. Exploring Expedition (1838–1842). Second, American educational reformers and intellectuals, with their gaze firmly set upon Europe, embarked on an overhaul of the American university system, adding comprehensive curricula in the sciences to colleges and universities for the first time.

In the nineteenth century, concerns had been voiced about the valuable European North Sea fishery and the cod fishery in New England leading to a new federal agency to investigate this resource. The U.S. Fish Commission gained support in 1871,and centered its activities in a laboratory at Woods Hole (Cape Cod) and on two ships dedicated for open-ocean fisheries work. Thus, when an international meeting was held in 1888 at Plymouth, England, to investigate the collapse of the North Sea fishery and when the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) was formed in 1902, American scientists were prepared to participate.

Federal support for oceanography at this time was limited. Indeed, when Alexander Agassiz explored the Pacific and Atlantic at the end of the nineteenth century, he did so aboard Coast Survey and Fish Commission vessels but financed the work with his own personal resources. Thus, by the beginning of the twentieth century, Americans lagged behind the British, Germans, and Scandinavians.

American interests in the sea changed, however, first with the sinking of the Titanic (1912), and then from the American experiences in World War I (1914–1918). Both disasters illustrated the need to better understand the oceanic conditions in the North Atlantic and to develop underwater listening devices to protect the country from the new submarine warfare. Lacking a permanent scientific advisory group, President Woodrow Wilson transferred the wartime National Research Council (NRC) to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) following the war. Continuing its work after 1919, the NRC sponsored re-search that led in the 1920s to the development and refinement of the sonic depth finder and sonar, acoustical devices that greatly improved navigation and enabled surface ships to detect submarines. With its newfound interest in the sea, the NAS established its Committee on Oceanography in 1927, charged with recommending federal oceanic policy.

By the early twentieth century, Americans already established a research presence alongside the ocean, at marine laboratories on both coastlines. The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) enhanced the research objectives of the Fish Commission laboratory at Woods Hole. On the West Coast, William Emerson Ritter established the Scripps Institution of Biological Research in La Jolla (near San Diego) in 1903. But neither Woods Hole nor Scripps had an extensive oceanic research program; indeed, American oceanography was barely in its infancy.

In 1924, Thomas Wayland Vaughan, a geologist, was appointed to direct the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO). Three years later, he was named a member of the NAS's oceanographic committee. By the end of 1927, the committee began to support Vaughan's notion that the country needed "oceanographic stations" scattered along the American Pacific and Atlantic coastlines. Then in 1930, the Rockefeller Foundation announced the establishment of three oceanography centers, Scripps Institution in La Jolla, the Oceanographic Laboratories at the University of Washington, and a large new research center at Woods Hole, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Thus, by 1930, the institutional framework for the development of American oceanography was set.

The new scientific field developed rapidly, especially with the infusion of research money from philanthropic, federal, and military sources. The U.S. Navy encouraged developments in marine acoustics and related aspects of physical oceanography as it attempted to develop more sophisticated means to monitor the subsurface environment and to build deterrent devices for submarine warfare. This work led to more sophisticated sonar devices and the invention of hydrophones for submarine sound detection. Geological oceanography received attention especially as it offered a means to direct exploration of shallow oceanic basins for oil. Meteorological research continued at most oceanographic laboratories, attempting to understand the relationship between oceanic currents, open ocean wind patterns, and continental weather.

With the outbreak of World War II (1939–1945), oceanography's centrality to the American war effort was demonstrated once again. Of course, much attention focused on the development of submarine warfare. While at the outset of the war, the Allies lost an inordinate number of vessels, wartime matériel, and manpower to the German submarines, oceanographic developments led to dramatic improvements in submarine detection and, ultimately, to the production of submarines and submarine warfare that exacted an even greater toll from the Germans and Japanese. Not surprisingly, therefore, when the war ended in 1945, the federal government established the Office of Naval Research (ONR), which served to ensure funding for oceanographic centers throughout the United States. In addition, the presence of surplus Navy vessels created a surfeit of oceanic research platforms for American oceanographers.

Following the war, the emergence of the Cold War maintained the U.S. Navy patronage for oceanographic research. In addition to its traditional concerns, the Navy became interested in studying the deep ocean basins. This interest involved an extensive hydrophone system, connected by submarine cables to monitor the movement of Soviet submarines, so the deep basins in the Atlantic and Pacific posed potential problems. These same regions attracted increasing attention from oceanographers in the 1950s and 1960s as ideas of seafloor spreading and continental drift began to be discussed again. The existence of mid-ocean ridges and deep-sea trenches gave these notions added credence, but oceanographers needed new technological tools to investigate the bottom of the sea to validate the mechanism for any movement.

Water sampling, temperature measurements, and bottom sediments were soon the target of many research expeditions. Increasingly, this type of research became more expensive, multidisciplinary, and technological, requiring greater financial resources, larger groups of collaborating researchers, and, in many cases, international cooperation from oceanographic experts scattered worldwide.

With multiple partners, oceanography entered its current phase. Continuing to pursue deep ocean research, oceanographers worked to develop a new technological device, the deep-sea submersible. Following dramatic explorations of the earth's deepest marine trenches in the Trieste, American oceanographers argued for the creation of a highly maneuverable submersible that could withstand the demanding conditions of the oceanic depth. The Navy, too, was interested; after all, the hydrophone network it planned would need to be maintained. Then, the loss of the attack submarine Thresher in 1963 under-scored the Navy's interests. Working closely with engineers at Woods Hole and other oceanographers with sub-marine experience, the Alvin was commission in 1964 and the era of submersible research in oceanography entered its most dramatic phase.

By the 1970s, the Navy modified submersibles for its own purposes and Alvin and its successors were pressed into basic oceanographic research. In the late 1970s, oceanographers soon discovered sea vents adjacent to oceanic ridges worldwide. Even more dramatic, however, were the faunal forms inhabiting these vents. For the first time, luxuriant "gardens" of deep-sea animals, all new to science, were described. Plate tectonics was not just con-firmed, but the physical, chemical, and biological aspects of the vents opened a new era for oceanographic research. By the close of the century, new ideas concerning the origin of life, conditions for the emergence of life, sources for the chemical composition of seawater, and deep ocean sources for thermal conductivity created fresh perspectives for oceanographic work. Coupled with exciting extensions of the century-long work to study open-ocean currents, including work on the longitudinal oscillations of large masses of warm and cold water in the central gyres of the oceans that seem to affect the earth's climate, oceanography at the beginning of the twenty-first century promised to maintain its prominent role in scientific research.

Bibliography

Benson, Keith R., and Philip F. Rehbock, eds. Oceanographic History: The Pacific and Beyond. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002.

Mills, Eric. Biological Oceanography, An Early History, 1870–1960. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989.

Oreskes, Naomi, ed. Plate Tectonics: An Insider's History of the Modern Theory of the Earth. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2001.

(DOD) The study of the sea, embracing and integrating all knowledge pertaining to the sea and its physical boundaries, the chemistry and physics of seawater, and marine biology.

Thermohaline circulation

Oceanography (from Ocean + Greek γράφειν = write), also called oceanology or marine science, is the branch of Earth Sciences that studies the Earth's oceans and seas. It covers a wide range of topics, including marine organisms and ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamics; plate tectonics and the geology of the sea floor; and fluxes of various chemical substances and physical properties within the ocean and across its boundaries. These diverse topics reflect multiple disciplines that oceanographers blend to further knowledge of the world ocean and understanding of processes within it: biology, chemistry, geology, meteorology, and physics.

Sub-Categories

The study of oceanography may be divide into a number of branches:

• Marine biology or biological oceanography, is the study of the plants, animals and microbes (biota) of the oceans and their ecological interaction;
• Chemical oceanography or marine chemistry, is the study of the chemistry of the ocean and its chemical interaction with the atmosphere;
• Marine geology or geological oceanography, is the study of the geology of the ocean floor including plate tectonics;
• Physical oceanography studies the ocean's physical attributes including temperature-salinity structure, mixing, waves, tides and currents;
• Marine engineering involves the design and building of oil platforms, ships, harbors, and other structures that allow us to use the ocean wisely. ^[1]

These branches reflect the fact that many oceanographers are first trained in the exact sciences or mathematics and then focus on applying their interdisciplinary knowledge, skills and abilities to oceanography.^[2]

History

Ocean currents (1911)

Early exploration of the oceans was limited to its surfaces and the few creatures that fishermen brought up in nets, but when Louis Antoine de Bougainville and James Cook carried out their explorations in the South Pacific, the seas themselves formed part of the reports.

James Rennell wrote the first scientific textbooks about currents in the Atlantic and Indian oceans during the late 18th and at the beginning of 19th century. Sir James Clark Ross took the first modern sounding in deep sea in 1840, and Charles Darwin published a paper on reefs and the formation of atolls.

The steep slope beyond the continental shelves was not discovered until 1849. Matthew Fontaine Maury's Physical Geography of the Sea, 1855 was the first textbook of oceanography. The first successful laying of Transatlantic telegraph cable in August 1858 confirmed the presence of an underwater "telegraphic plateau" mid-ocean ridge.

After the middle of the 19th century, scientific societies were processing a flood of new terrestrial botanical and zoological information. European natural historians began to sense the lack of more than anecdotal knowledge of the oceans.

In 1871, Under the recommendations of the Royal Society of London, the British government sponsored an expedition to explore world's oceans and conduct scientific investigations. With that, oceanography began as a quantifiable science in 1872, when the Scots Charles Wyville Thompson and Sir John Murray launched the Challenger expedition (1872–1876).

Other European and American nations also sent out scientific expeditions (as did private individuals and institutions). The four-month 1910 North Atlantic expedition headed by Sir John Murray and Johan Hjort was at that time the most ambitious research oceanographic and marine zoological project ever, and led to the classic 1912 book The Depths of the Ocean.

Oceanographic institutes dedicated to the study of oceanography were founded. In the United States, these included the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, and the School of Oceanography at University of Washington. In Britain, there is a major research institution: National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. In Australia, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, known as CMAR, is a leading center.

The first international organization of oceanography was created in 1902 as the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea.

In 1921 Monaco formed the International Hydrographic Bureau (IHB). Then in 1966, the U.S. Congress created a National Council for Marine Resources and Engineering Development. NOAA was in charge of exploring and studying all aspects of Oceanography. It also enabled the National Science Foundation to award Sea Grant College funding to multi-disciplinary researchers in the field of oceanography.

Ocean and atmosphere connections

The study of the oceans is intimately linked to understanding global warming and related biosphere concerns.

“	Our planet is invested with two great oceans; one visible, the other invisible; one underfoot, the other overhead; one entirely envelopes it, the other covers about two thirds of its surface.	”
	— Matthew F. Maury (1855) The Physical Geography of the Seas and Its Meteorology

Major oceanographic institutions and programs

International

• American Geophysical Union
• American Society of Limnology and Oceanography

Canada

• Bedford Institute of Oceanography

France

• IFREMER - French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea
• Station biologique de Roscoff

Germany

• Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven

India

• National Institute of Oceanography, Goa

U.K.

• National Oceanography Centre, Southampton
• Gatty Marine Laboratory, St Andrews, Scotland
• Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Plymouth
• The Scottish Association for Marine Science, Scotland

USA

• Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Scripps Institution of Oceanography
• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
• Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

Mexico

• Instituto de Investigaciones Oceanologicas
• Facultad de Ciencias Marinas UABC
• Centro de Investigación Científica y de Estudios Superiores de Ensenada CICESE

References

1. ^ Tom Garrison. "Oceanography: An Invitation to Marine Science" 5th edition. Thomson, 2005. Page 4.
2. ^ Impact from the Deep; October 2006; Scientific American Magazine; by Peter D. Ward; 8 Page(s)

See also

• American Practical Navigator
• Anoxic event - Anoxic sea water
• Argo (oceanography)
• Fleet Numerical Oceanography Center
• Freak wave
• List of Oceanic basins
• Oceans Act of 2000
• Ocean colonization
• Oceanographic Museum - Monaco
• Sea level
• Sea level rise

Related disciplines

• Biogeochemistry
• Biogeography
• Hydrography
• Hydrology
• Limnology
• Meteorology

External links

• School of Oceanography at the University of Washington - U.S. leader in ocean research and education with co-located undergraduate and graduate programs.
• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) - World's largest private, nonprofit ocean research, engineering and education organization.
• Scripps Institution of Oceanography
• Ocean Explorer - Public outreach site for explorations sponsored by the NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration.
• NOAA, Ocean Explorer History
• NOAA, Ocean Explorer Gallery - A rich collection of images, video, audio and podcast.
• NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration
• NOAA Ocean and Weather Data Navigator - Plot and download ocean data
• Exploring Marine Ecosystems - Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History permanent exhibit
• Freeview Video 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Deep Deep Sea' Oceanography Programme - Vega Science Trust and the BBC/OU
• NEMO: Modeling framework for Oceanography
• Oceanographycal and Hidrobiological manuscripts The Turkish Seas
• Ocean Alliance: Conservation Biology
• Matthias Tomczak's oceanography teaching site (Open source studying material)
• Ocean World (Open source textbook)
• SeaDiscovery - Marine Technology Reporter (technology science and engineering)
• Oceanographers Net, Online portal for the Oceanographic community
• Pew Institute fo Ocean Science - Protecting the world's oceans and the species that inhabit them.
• Herdman, William A. - Founders of Oceanography, and their work - An introduction to the science of the sea
• The National Office for Integrated and Sustained Ocean Observation
• Timeline of Oceanography
• WMO: Tropical Meteorology Research Programme
• Ocean Motion and Surface Currents (NASA)
• British Oceanographic Data Centre - a source of oceanographic data and information
• Office of Naval Research

Further reading

• Steele, J., K. Turekian and S. Thorpe. (2001). Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences. San Diego: Academic Press. (6 vols.) ISBN 0-12-227430-X
• Sverdrup, Keith A., Duxbury, Alyn C., Duxbury, Alison B. (2006). Fundamentals of Oceanography, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0072826789.

General subfields within the earth sciences
Atmospheric sciences · Geodesy · Geology · Geophysics · Glaciology
Hydrology · Physical Geography · Oceanography · Soil science

Environmental science
Atmospheric sciences | Ecology | Geosciences | Soil science| Hydrology |
Related fields: Biology | Chemistry | Environmental design | Environmental economics | Environmental ethics | Environmental law | Physics | Pollution control | Sustainability | Waste management
Environmental technology

Sub-fields of Physical Geography
Biogeography · Climatology & paleoclimatology · Coastal geography · Geomorphology · Glaciology · Hydrology & Hydrography · Landscape ecology · Limnology · Oceanography · Palaeogeography · Pedology · Quaternary science

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - oceanografi, havforskning

Nederlands (Dutch)
oceanografie, oceaanstudie

Français (French)
n. - océanographie

Deutsch (German)
n. - Meereskunde

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - ωκεανογραφία

Italiano (Italian)
oceanografia

Português (Portuguese)
n. - oceanografia (f)

Русский (Russian)
океанография

Español (Spanish)
n. - oceanografía

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - oceanografi, djuphavsforskning

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
海洋学

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 海洋學

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 해양학

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 海洋学

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) علم المحيطات‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮חקר האוקיינוסים, אוקיאנוגרפיה‬

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