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The sea, the world ocean or simply the ocean is the connected body of salty water that covers

over 70% of Earth's surface (361,132,000 square kilometres (139,434,000 sq mi), with a total
volume of roughly 1,332,000,000 cubic kilometres (320,000,000 cu mi)).[1] It moderates Earth's
climate and has important roles in the water cycle, carbon cycle, and nitrogen cycle. It has been
travelled and explored since ancient times, while the scientific study of the sea—
oceanography—dates broadly from the voyages of Captain James Cook to explore the Pacific
Ocean between 1768 and 1779. The word sea is also used to denote smaller, partly landlocked
sections of the ocean and certain large, entirely landlocked, saltwater lakes, such as the Caspian
Sea and the Dead Sea.

The most abundant solid dissolved in sea water is sodium chloride. The water also contains salts
of magnesium, calcium, and potassium, amongst many other elements, some in minute
concentrations. Salinity varies widely, being lower near the surface and the mouths of large
rivers and higher in the depths of the ocean; however, the relative proportions of dissolved salts
varies little across the oceans. Winds blowing over the surface of the sea produce waves, which
break when they enter shallow water. Winds also create surface currents through friction, setting
up slow but stable circulations of water throughout the oceans. The directions of the circulation
are governed by factors including the shapes of the continents and Earth's rotation (the Coriolis
effect). Deep-sea currents, known as the global conveyor belt, carry cold water from near the
poles to every ocean. Tides, the generally twice-daily rise and fall of sea levels, are caused by
Earth's rotation and the gravitational effects of the orbiting Moon and, to a lesser extent, of the
Sun. Tides may have a very high range in bays or estuaries. Submarine earthquakes arising from
tectonic plate movements under the oceans can lead to destructive tsunamis, as can volcanoes,
huge landslides or the impact of large meteorites.

A wide variety of organisms, including bacteria, protists, algae, plants, fungi, and animals, live in
the sea, which offers a wide range of marine habitats and ecosystems, ranging vertically from the
sunlit surface and shoreline to the great depths and pressures of the cold, dark abyssal zone, and
in latitude from the cold waters under polar ice caps to the colourful diversity of coral reefs in
tropical regions. Many of the major groups of organisms evolved in the sea and life may have
started there.

The sea provides substantial supplies of food for humans, mainly fish, but also shellfish,
mammals and seaweed, whether caught by fishermen or farmed underwater. Other human uses
of the sea include trade, travel, mineral extraction, power generation, warfare, and leisure
activities such as swimming, sailing, and scuba diving. Many of these activities create marine
pollution. The sea is important in human culture, with major appearances in literature at least
since Homer's Odyssey, in marine art, in cinema, in theatre and in classical music. Symbolically,
the sea appears as monsters such as Scylla in mythology and represents the unconscious mind in
dream interpretation.

Definition
Further information: List of seas
Animated map exhibiting the world's oceanic waters. A continuous body of water encircling
Earth, the World Ocean is divided into a number of principal areas with relatively uninhibited
interchange among them. Five oceanic divisions are usually defined: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian,
Arctic, and Southern; the last two listed are sometimes consolidated into the first three.

The sea is the interconnected system of all the Earth's oceanic waters, including the Atlantic,
Pacific, Indian, Southern and Arctic Oceans.[2] However, the word "sea" can also be used for
many specific, much smaller bodies of seawater, such as the North Sea or the Red Sea. There is
no sharp distinction between seas and oceans, though generally seas are smaller, and are often
partly (as marginal seas) or wholly (as inland seas) bordered by land.[3] However, the Sargasso
Sea has no coastline and lies within a circular current, the North Atlantic Gyre.[4](p90) Seas are
generally larger than lakes and contain salt water, but the Sea of Galilee is a freshwater lake.[5][a]
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea states that all of the ocean is "sea".[9][10][b]

Physical science

Composite images of the Earth created by NASA in 2001


Main articles: Oceanography and Physical oceanography

Earth is the only known planet with seas of liquid water on its surface,[4](p22) although Mars
possesses ice caps and similar planets in other solar systems may have oceans.[12] It is still
unclear where Earth's water came from, but, seen from space, our planet appears as a "blue
marble" of its various forms: oceans, ice caps, clouds.[13] Earth's 1,335,000,000 cubic kilometers
(320,000,000 cu mi) of sea contain about 97.2 percent of its known water[14][c] and cover more
than 70 percent of its surface.[4](p7) Another 2.15% of Earth's water is frozen, found in the sea ice
covering the Arctic Ocean, the ice cap covering Antarctica and its adjacent seas, and various
glaciers and surface deposits around the world. The remainder (about 0.65% of the whole) form
underground reservoirs or various stages of the water cycle, containing the freshwater
encountered and used by most terrestrial life: vapor in the air, the clouds it slowly forms, the rain
falling from them, and the lakes and rivers spontaneously formed as its waters flow again and
again to the sea.[14] The sea's dominance of the planet is such that the British author Arthur C.
Clarke once noted that "Earth" would have been better named "Ocean".[4](p7)

The scientific study of water and Earth's water cycle is hydrology; hydrodynamics studies the
physics of water in motion. The more recent study of the sea in particular is oceanography. This
began as the study of the shape of the ocean's currents[19] but has since expanded into a large and
multidisciplinary field:[20] it examines the properties of seawater; studies waves, tides, and
currents; charts coastlines and maps the seabeds; and studies marine life.[21] The subfield dealing
with the sea's motion, its forces, and the forces acting upon it is known as physical
oceanography.[22] Marine biology (biological oceanography) studies the plants, animals, and
other organisms inhabiting marine ecosystems. Both are informed by chemical oceanography,
which studies the behavior of elements and molecules within the oceans: particularly, at the
moment, the ocean's role in the carbon cycle and carbon dioxide's role in the increasing
acidification of seawater. Marine and maritime geography charts the shape and shaping of the
sea, while marine geology (geological oceanography) has provided evidence of continental drift
and the composition and structure of the Earth, clarified the process of sedimentation, and
assisted the study of volcanism and earthquakes.[20]

Seawater

Main article: Seawater

Salinity map taken from the Aquarius Spacecraft. The rainbow colours represent salinity levels:
red = 40 ‰, purple = 30 ‰

The water in the sea was thought to come from the Earth's volcanoes, starting 4 billion years ago,
released by degassing from molten rock.[4](pp24–25) More recent work suggests much of the Earth's
water may come from comets.[23] A characteristic of seawater is that it is salty. Salinity is usually
measured in parts per thousand (‰ or per mil), and the open ocean has about 35 grams (1.2 oz)
solids per litre, a salinity of 35 ‰. The Mediterranean Sea is slightly higher at 38 ‰,[24] while
the salinity of the northern Red Sea can reach 41‰.[25] The constituents of table salt, sodium and
chloride, make up about 85 percent of the solids in solution, there are also other metal ions such
as magnesium and calcium and negative ions including sulphate, carbonate, and bromide.
Despite variations in the levels of salinity in different seas, the relative composition of the
dissolved salts is stable throughout the world's oceans.[26][27] Seawater is too saline for humans to
drink safely, as the kidneys cannot excrete urine as salty as seawater.[28] In contrast, some
landlocked hypersaline lakes have a much higher salinity, for example the Dead Sea has 300
grams (11 oz) dissolved solids per litre (300 ‰).

Major solutes in seawater (3.5% salinity)[27]


Solute Concentration (‰) % of total salts
Chloride 19.3 55
Sodium 10.8 30.6
Sulphate 2.7 7.7
Magnesium 1.3 3.7
Calcium 0.41 1.2
Potassium 0.40 1.1
Bicarbonate 0.10 0.4
Bromide 0.07 0.2
Carbonate 0.01 0.05
Strontium 0.01 0.04
Borate 0.01 0.01
Fluoride 0.001 <0.01
All other solutes <0.001 <0.01

Although the amount of salt in the ocean remains relatively constant within the scale of millions
of years, various factors affect the salinity of a body of water.[29] Evaporation and by-product of
ice formation (known as "brine rejection") increase salinity, whereas precipitation, sea ice melt,
and runoff from land reduce it.[29] The Baltic Sea, for example, has many rivers flowing into it,
and thus the sea could be considered as brackish.[30] Meanwhile, the Red Sea is very salty due to
its high evaporation rate.[31]

Sea temperature depends on the amount of solar radiation falling on its surface. In the tropics,
with the sun nearly overhead, the temperature of the surface layers can rise to over 30 °C (86 °F)
while near the poles the temperature in equilibrium with the sea ice is about −2 °C (28 °F). There
is a continuous circulation of water in the oceans. Warm surface currents cool as they move
away from the tropics, and the water becomes denser and sinks. The cold water moves back
towards the equator as a deep sea current, driven by changes in the temperature and density of
the water, before eventually welling up again towards the surface. Deep seawater has a
temperature between −2 °C (28 °F) and 5 °C (41 °F) in all parts of the globe.[32]

Seawater with a typical salinity of 35‰ has a freezing point of about −1.8 °C (28.8 °F).[33] When
its temperature becomes low enough, ice crystals form on the surface. These break into small
pieces and coalesce into flat discs that form a thick suspension known as frazil. In calm
conditions this freezes into a thin flat sheet known as nilas, which thickens as new ice forms on
its underside. In more turbulent seas, frazil crystals join together into flat discs known as
pancakes. These slide under each other and coalesce to form floes. In the process of freezing, salt
water and air are trapped between the ice crystals. Nilas may have a salinity of 12–15 ‰, but by
the time the sea ice is one year old, this falls to 4–6 ‰.[34]

The amount of oxygen found in seawater depends primarily on the plants growing in it. These
are mainly algae, including phytoplankton, with some vascular plants such as seagrasses. In
daylight the photosynthetic activity of these plants produces oxygen, which dissolves in the
seawater and is used by marine animals. At night, photosynthesis stops, and the amount of
dissolved oxygen declines. In the deep sea, where insufficient light penetrates for plants to grow,
there is very little dissolved oxygen. In its absence, organic material is broken down by
anaerobic bacteria producing hydrogen sulphide.[35] Global warming is likely to reduce levels of
oxygen in surface waters, since the solubility of oxygen in water falls at higher temperatures.[36]
The amount of light that penetrates the sea depends on the angle of the sun, the weather
conditions and the turbidity of the water. Much light gets reflected at the surface, and red light
gets absorbed in the top few metres. Yellow and green light reach greater depths, and blue and
violet light may penetrate as deep as 1,000 metres (3,300 ft). There is insufficient light for
photosynthesis and plant growth beyond a depth of about 200 metres (660 ft).[37]

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