World Ocean

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Not to be confused with Ocean World
(disambiguation).

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

Earth's oceans
(World Ocean)

Arctic Ocean

Atlantic
Ocean

Indian Ocean

Pacific Ocean

Southern
Ocean

The World Ocean, world ocean, or global ocean, is the
interconnected system of the Earth's oceanic (or marine) waters, and comprises the bulk of
the hydrosphere, covering almost
71% of the Earth's surface, with a total volume of 1.332 billion cubic
kilometres[1].

The unity and continuity of the World Ocean, with relatively free interchange
among its parts, is of fundamental importance to oceanography.[1]
It is divided into a number of principal oceanic areas that are delimited by the
continents
and various oceanographic features: these divisions are the Atlantic Ocean, Arctic
Ocean (rarely considered a sea of the Atlantic), Indian
Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and
Southern Ocean
(typically reckoned instead as just the southern portions of the Atlantic,
Indian, and Pacific Oceans). In turn, oceanic waters are interspersed by many
smaller seas, gulfs, and bays.

A global ocean has existed in one form or another on Earth for eons, and the
notion dates back to classical antiquity
(in the form of Oceanus). The contemporary
concept of the World Ocean was coined by the Russian oceanographer Yuly
Shokalsky in the early 20th century to describe what is basically a
solitary, continuous ocean that covers and encircles most of the Earth.

While continuous, the World Ocean can be visualized as being centered on the
Southern Ocean. The Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans can be seen as bays
or lobes extending northward from the Southern Ocean. Further north, the
Atlantic opens into the Arctic Ocean, which is connected to the Pacific by the
Bering Strait:

The Pacific Ocean, the largest of the oceans, also reaches northward from
the Southern Ocean to the Arctic Ocean. It spans the gap between Australia, Asia, the Americas and
Oceania. The
Pacific Ocean meets the Atlantic south of South America at Cape
Horn.

The Atlantic Ocean, the second largest, extends from the Southern Ocean
between South America, Africa, North
America and Europe, to the Arctic Ocean.
The Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean south of Africa at Cape Agulhas.

The Indian Ocean extends northward from the Southern Ocean to India, between
Africa and Australia. The Indian Ocean
joins the Pacific Ocean to the east, near Australia.

The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the five. It joins the Atlantic near
Greenland
and Iceland
and joins the Pacific at the Bering Strait. It
overlies the North Pole, touching North
America in the Western hemisphere
and Scandinavia and Asia in
the Eastern hemisphere.
The Arctic Ocean is partially covered in sea ice, the extent of which varies
according to the season. Some authorities[who?]
do not consider the Arctic Ocean a bona fide ocean,[citation
needed] because it is largely surrounded by land with
only limited exchange of water with the other oceans. Consequently, it is
considered to be a sea of the Atlantic, referred
to[citation
needed] as the Arctic Mediterranean Sea or
Arctic Sea.

The Southern Ocean is a proposed ocean surrounding Antarctica, dominated by
the Antarctic
Circumpolar Current, generally the ocean south of sixty degrees south
latitude. The Southern Ocean is partially covered in sea ice, the extent of which
varies according to the season. The Southern Ocean is the second smallest of
the five named oceans.

The approximate shape of the World Ocean can for most purposes be treated as
constant, although in fact it is not: continental drift
continually changes its structure.

[edit]
See also

Sea

Plate tectonics

Superocean

World Ocean
Atlas

Seven
Seas

Origin of water
on Earth

Oceanus

[edit]
References

^ Spilhaus,
Athelstan F. 1942 (Jul.). "Maps of the whole world ocean." Geographical
Review (American
Geographical Society). Vol. 32 (3): pp. 431-5.

Chekin, L. 2002. "The world ocean
in medieval cartography". Moscow: S. I. Vavilov Institute of the History
of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences; thesis for Museum of the World Ocean congress.

"Ocean". The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. 2003. New
York: Columbia University Press; also,

Danabasoglu, Gokhan ; McWilliams, James C.; & Gent, Peter R.
1994. "The role of mesoscale tracer transports in the global ocean
circulation". Science: vol.
264. (no. 5162), pp. 1123–1126.

"The world
ocean". Infoplease.com.
2005. Pearson Education.

Levitus, Sydney; Antonov, John I.; Boyer, Timothy P.; and Stephens, Cathy.
2000. "Warming of the world ocean": abstract, article. Science: vol. 287. (no. 5461),
pp. 2225–2229.

"All about oceans". LiveScience.com. 2007.
Imaginova Corp.

Spilhaus, Athelstan F. 1942. "Maps of the whole world ocean." Geographical
Review: vol. 32 (no. 3), pp. 431–5.

UN Atlas of the Oceans:

"Distribution of land and water on the planet", "Origins of the oceans and continents"

v ·
d ·
eRegions of the
world

Africa

Northern ·
Sub-Saharan
(Central ·
Southern ·
Western ·
Eastern)

Oceania

Australasia
(Australia) ·
Melanesia ·
Micronesia ·
Polynesia

America

North
(Northern •
Middle •
Central •
Caribbean) · South
(Southern •
Northern •
Western) · Anglo ·
Latin

Polar

Arctic · Antarctic

Asia

Central ·
Eastern (Northeastern) ·
Northern ·
Southeastern ·
Southern
(Indian
subcontinent) · Western
(Middle
East)

Oceans

World · Arctic ·
Atlantic ·
Indian ·
Pacific ·
Southern

Europe

Central ·
Eastern ·
Northern ·
Southeastern ·
Southern ·
Western

Seas

List of
seas

Related Continents
of the world · List of
seas · Physical
Earth

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This page was last modified on 2 October 2011 at
22:17.

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