Oceanography Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key concepts from oceanography lectures.

Climate

A place's average condition.

Decadal variability

Wet and dry times that seem to cluster over decades.

PDO and AMO

Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation

ENSO

El Nino/Southern Oscillation

Jet Stream

Spinning air known as this.

Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)

Defined by how much ocean temperatures deviate from the average.

PDO warm

Good Alaska salmon fishing, bad Oregon salmon fishing

PDO cold

Good Oregon salmon fishing, bad Alaska salmon fishing

PDO

Influences rainfall patterns and continental climate with decadal frequency.

Oceanic heat wave

Persistent high pressure system over the north Pacific Ocean creates this.

High pressure system

Sinking air, clear skies, extra heating

Stratification

Inhibits ocean mixing, fewer nutrients get into the upper ocean.

Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)

A cycle between 10-30 years that results in phase shift in High Pressure systems in the Northern Hemisphere.

El Niño

Changes in wind and currents in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean

Southern Oscillation

Wherever warm water moves, that area will have low pressure, and there will be comparatively higher pressure in the region it was pushed away from.

Thermocline

The point where the ocean goes from warm water to cold.

La Niña

Very strong trade winds and very cold waters in the eastern Pacific.

Teleconnections

The correlations between weather events that occur at different places on the Earth.

Paleoceanography

The study of past ocean conditions

Isotopes

Elements that have the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons.

Proxy

A measurable quantity that substitutes for something no longer measurable

Interglacials

Warm times.

Milankovitch Cycles

The Earth’s Movement around the Sun varies through time in a complex, cyclic manner.

Anthropocene

The time period when humans started to have a significant impact on the earth’s environment.

Water Pollution

Any chemical, biological or physical change in water quality that has a harmful effect on living organisms.

Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone

A part of the ocean with very little oxygen in it.

Hypoxic

Low oxygen waters.

DDT

It will adsorb (stick) to particles in the ocean.

Biomagnification

The process of DDT getting concentrated up the food chain.

Sachet economy

Consumers buying things in small quantities, wrapped in plastic

Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)

An area of the ocean in which a sovereign country has the sole rights to explore/use marine resources, stretching 200 nautical miles from that country.

Manganese nodules

Rocks that grow at the bottom of the ocean

Hydrogenetic growth

Growth beginning from the water.

Diagenetic growth

Growth beginning from the sediment.

Mining

Clouds of material being created called sediment plumes that can be harmful for the ocean.

anthropocene

the time period when humans started to have a significant impact on the earth’s environment

Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO)

The byproduct of making jet fuel that most ships use.

Blanket

Because of fossil fuels, the earth is wearing this.

Holocene, Jurassic, Cambrian

Different time periods in the history of the earth.

Abrupt climate change

Nothing really seems to happen . . . and then something drastic happens!

Ocean stratification

When some water (warmer, lower salinity) stays at the top of the ocean and doesn’t mix

3 Bad Things

Hot, Sour, Breathless

Carbon emission solutions

7 wedges related to it.

Wedges

A distinct approach to reducing fossil fuel emissions

Marine CDR

Marine carbon dioxide removal

AWL

Accelerated Weathering of Limestone