Final Assignment

During the past few months I learned so much about seventy percent of the planet we all live on, the ocean. The physics of the Ocean is so fascinating to learn about and experiment with. We did a various amount of labs where we learned about the tides, the temperatures, the salinity, the density, the minerals found on the ocean floor as well as washed up on the shoreline. There is so much living matter within the waters, and we hardly even know the half of it all. The difficulties of getting down physically on the ocean floor has become much easier because of the modern technology scientists are creating. One for example, they have a team set base down on the ocean floor for a while to run tests, and examine all natural living matter down there. We followed this movie selection, with an assignment where we created our own laboratory on the ocean floor, and we picked a species to study. We recently have studied the changes in water temperature based on the location around the equator and the poles. We learned Density is affected by temperature, as well as its salinity. Warmer water will have less of a salinity, and colder has more salinity. We had a lab where we used hydrometers to test out the density while we added various amounts of salt to the mixture of blue dye and water. While we added more salt to beaker it floated more than with just fresh water. The ocean life has sure brought a interest into my eyes, and i would love to learn even more about the topics of physics.

Build a Hydrometer

Conclusion and  Questions:

Salinity is expressed as the number of grams of dissolved salts in one kilogram of seawater. If you ass salt to a water solution the hydrometer will lower because there's more density in the water. The addition of salt on properties of water allows it to become more dense with all the minerals. Density is the degree of compactness of a substance. Temperature causes differences in salinity of water because high temperatures create a higher density, and a lower temperature will create a less dense space.

Its all Connected

  In class we learned a lot about wind patterns and currents. Wind patterns greatly influence the currents in Oceans. The reason is because the wind pushes up against the water and constantly pushes the waves in that direction. Because of this, water is constantly moving on the Earth. For instance, Water off the shore of Brazil is usually a lot colder because it is being pushed from up towards Alaska toward the equator. And water from the Equator is pushed either NE or it is pushed down south. It is warmer on the equator because of the angle the sun light hits it. It is stronger there than any other part of the globe. In 1992 many rubber ducks were abandoned in the ocean and scientists tracked where they ended up which totally helped scientists research water and wind patterns on the globe.  The wind comes from down towards the equator and either keeps going to the poles or it goes back into the Atlantic Ocean. The air from towards the equator brings a lot of moisture and heat. If a hurricane were to pick up a message in a bottle off the coast it could also affect where it would end up. The warm water coming from towards the equator brings dolphins/sharks and other tropical sealife and when the water goes back out towards the equator it probably picks up a lot of human waste which is unfortunate. I am happy that there is international law over what we throw out in the ocean, because if it were only local law, we would still be getting affected by the choices of a country across the globe. We should try and dispose waste in space instead of the ocean, because the oceans are limited but as far as we know space has literally infinite space.

Tides and the Moon

     Tides are caused by a gravitational tug-of-war between the sun, moon, and earth. All objects exert gravitational pull on each other. The closer they are, or the larger they are, the greater the pull. All of the planets exert some gravitational pull on the earth. However, the pull of the moon and sun are most noticeable because the moon is so close to us and the sun is so big. It takes the earth 365 days to revolve around the sun. As it revolves around the sun, it spins, or rotates on its axis once every 24 hours. At the same time, the moon revolves around the earth once every 29 days. The gravitational pull of the sun holds the earth in orbit, while the gravitational pull of the earth keeps the moon in orbit.As a result of this gravitational attraction between the earth and the moon, the side of the earth facing the moon is pulled towards it. Solid objects like the ground and buildings are not distorted as much as liquids like the ocean. A bulge of water occurs on the side of the earth facing the moon. As the earth rotates around the sun, centrifugal force causes an equal bulge of water on the opposite side of the earth. Water is pulled away from these two sides of the earth to form these bulges, or high tides. This leaves a depression, or low spot, in the oceans between. These are the
areas of low tides.

Global Wind Patterns

1.)Earth has uneven heating because of the earths titled axis, sphere shape, and earths rotation.The angle at which the sun's rays strike the earth's surface is a major factor in the amount of energy received per unit of surface area. More direct rays provide more concentrated energy. Sun angles are also useful in navigation for determining latitudinal position.

From the global winds lab i learned about all the different wind patterns there are. They all have different wind directions as well as rotations. Not one wind pattern is the same. 

2.)The earths rotation affect the air and water masses by the Coriolis Effect. The Coriolis force is quite small, and its effects generally become noticeable only for motions occurring over large distances and long periods of time, such as large-scale movement of air in the atmosphere or water in the ocean. The Coriolis Effect is an effect whereby a mass moving in a rotating system experiences a force acting perpendicular to the direction of motion and to the axis of rotation. A Hadley Cell is a large-scale atmospheric convection cell in which air rises at the equator and sinks at medium latitudes, typically about 30° north or south. Deserts are at 30 degrees latitude because The equator has more heat than the North and South poles. Air sinks at the poles and rises at the equator, sinking air causes drying which is what deserts are all about. Deserts by definition are places which receive very little rain every year.

3.)Prevailing winds are winds that blow predominantly from a single general direction over a particular point on the earths surface. Trade winds are winds blowing steadily toward the equator from the northeast in the northern hemisphere or the southeast in the southern hemisphere, esp. at sea. Doldrums are a state or period of inactivity, stagnation, or depression. Horse latitudes are a belt of calm air and sea occurring in both the northern and southern hemispheres between the trade winds and the westerlies.The Westerlies are the prevailing winds in the middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude, blowing from the high pressure area in the horse latitudes towards the poles. I didnt realize there were so many different wind patterns i thought that there were different patterns of wind everyday.Prevailing westerlies in the Northern Hemisphere are responsible for many of the weather movements across the United States and Canada.

http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/climate-in-context-global-warmings-potential-impact-on-wind-energy 

They expect that as global warming continues, the temperature difference between, say, the equator and the North Pole is expected to shrink, because the Arctic is warming much faster than the tropics.

Loggerhead Island

On the side of the island with the sea turtle nesting we needed to consider the precautions of the public being a disturbance, and we also needed relocate the police and fire station on one side of it and the research center on the other for patrol. We made a timer on the street lights so that they do not disturb the nesting. We placed our fishing dock on the lagoon side of the island because its calm  and peaceful over there and lots of fish will stay over there.Our golf course could be flooded by the oceanic side of the island but its close tot he lagoon as well so it may not have any issues. We placed a large netting around the sides so that the golf balls don't enter the ocean. The economic benefits are the public housing is mostly on the lagoon side away from the economic stuff. Humans negatively impact the coastal ecosystems with there rowdiness, pollution, and the electricity distributed around the streets. With healthy vegetation and economy we can severely prevent the issues of storms starting. I wish that made the gold course larger, had more public attractions, and more security of sea turtle nesting

A Beach by its Name

Primary and Secondary coasts are very different by there natural formation. A primary coast is formed by the erosion of land. Primary coasts are generally young and are shaped by terrestrial processes, including erosion, river/stream deposition, glaciers, volcanism, and tectonic movements. Secondary coasts are shaped mainly by marine erosion or deposition due to wave action, sediment transport by currents, or building activities of certain organisms and generally these coasts are older. Secondary coasts are formed by large waves, more exposed to tropical storms, shore straightening occurs most rapidly here. Estuaries are classified into five different groups based upon there circulation and salinity. The five major groups known as,salt wedge, fjord,slightly stratified, vertically mixed, and fresh water.Bar-built estuaries are formed when sandbars build up along the coastline. The first stage in the formation of a tectonic estuary is when the rapid movement of the Earth’s crust causes a large piece of land to sink, or subside, producing a depression or basin.While strongly affected by tides and tidal cycles, many estuaries are protected from the full force of ocean waves, winds, and storms by reefs, barrier islands, or fingers of land, mud, or sand that surround them.The shallow, nutrient-rich waters of estuaries and associated wetlands create a highly productive environment for plants and animals. In fact, estuarine environments are among the most productive on earth. The high concentration of nutrients and shallow depth support phytoplankton, seagrasses, macroalgae, emergent grasses and, in tropical environments, mangroves.The economy of many coastal areas relies on the natural beauty and bounty of estuaries. When those natural resources are imperiled, so are the livelihoods of the many people who live and work along the coast. As our population grows, the demands imposed on our natural resources increase and protecting these resources for all their natural, economic, and aesthetic values becomes even more important. Dunes are natural barriers to the destructive forces of wind and waves, sand dunes are our first line of defense against coastal storms and beach erosion. They absorb the impact of storm surge and high waves, preventing or delaying flooding of inland areas and damage to inland structures. They are also sand storage areas that supply sand to eroded beaches during storms and buffer windblown sand and salt spray.