Importance of Our Oceans

Why are oceans important?

Interactive Lesson

Complete your guided notes as you work online.

The ocean is an integral component of the world's climate due to its capacity to collect, drive and mix water, heat, and carbon dioxide.

Multiple Choice

Which of the following is not collected and mixed by the ocean

• heat

• water

• carbon dioxide

• photosynthesis

The ocean can hold and circulate more water, heat and carbon dioxide that the atmosphere although components of the Earth's climate are constantly exchanged.​

The ocean stores heat in the upper two meters of the photic zone.

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This is because seawater has a very high density and specific heat and as a result can store vast quantities energy in the form of heat.​

Multiple Choice

In which ocean zone is heat stored?

• photic

• aphotic

Because the ocean can store so much heat, seasons occur later than they would and air above the ocean is warmed.​

Multiple Choice

Which of the following explains why season occur later than normal close to the ocean?

• This is does not happen.

• The ocean holds so much heat that it warms the air around it.

• The ocean does not affect the air around it, but the land around the ocean heats the air.

• The ocean cools the air around it.

Heat energy stored in the ocean in one season will affect the climate almost an entire season later.

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The ocean and atmosphere work together to form complex weather phenomena like the North Atlantic Oscillation and El Niño.

Multiple Choice

What weather phenomena is caused by a low pressure system in the North Atlantic and a high pressure system near the equator?

• El Nino

• North Atlantic Oscillation

The many chemical cycles occurring between the ocean and the atmosphere also influence the climate by controlling the amount of radiation released into ecosystems and our environment.

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Air temperatures all over the world are regulated by the circulation of heat by the oceans.​

The ocean can the buffer changes in temperature by storing heat and releasing heat.​

It is most noticeable near the equator and the effect decreases closer to the poles.​

Dynamic System

The ocean is a dynamic system i which many chemical, biological, and physical changes are taking place.

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The ocean is an important source of food and mineral resources as well as a venue for human recreation and transportation.

The ocean is the largest reservoir of water on the surface of the Earth.

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The ocean is the single largest reservoir of heat at Earth's surface.​

The stored heat in the ocean drives much of Earth's weather and causes climate near the ocean to be milder than the climate in the interior of continents.​

Many of the cycles that circulate materials between the atmosphere, lithosphere, and hydrosphere originate in the ocean.​

Ocean currents are a source of large scale distribution of energy and resources on the Earth.​