Download this lab as a Word document: Lab 6: Ocean Properties & Circulation [1] (Please download required files below.)
The lab this week is fairly short. The goal is to give you a more visual overview of surface ocean properties and circulation and their relationship with climate change. The questions will require you to have mastered the material in the module, so make sure you read and understood them completely.
The goals of this lab are to:
Before you begin answering the Practice questions, please load and get comfortable turning on and off the following kmz files:
Please Note: You will be downloading kmz files from the Internet this week, not directly from this Lab.
The map shows average Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs). The colors are a little close together, so you will need to look carefully to determine trends. Note also the data are acquired from a bunch of different sources so there can be artificial “joins” on the map. We try to make sure these do not impact the questions. If certain areas don’t show the temperatures, keep rotating the globe.
Now, turn on the surface current kmz and answer the following questions. Note the white arrows are surface ocean currents and the blue and red lines are the global conveyor belt. If you don’t know where places are, you can search for them by adding a name in the box, top left.
Now turn on the chlorophyll kmz and answer the following questions. The colors again are very subtle; make sure you use the scale at bottom right - anything lighter blue or white is considered high productivity.
The future: Observe the El Niño visualization for the years 2015-2016 [5]. Since warm water holds less oxygen than cold water, determine how the expansions of dead zones occur from 2015 to 2016.
Links
[1] https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/sites/www.e-education.psu.edu.earth103/files/Module%206%20Lab.doc
[2] https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/sites/www.e-education.psu.edu.earth103/files/module05/World%20and%20Regional%20Sea%20Surface%20Temperature_0.kmz
[3] https://ti.arc.nasa.gov/m/project/planetary/kml/chl.kmz
[4] http://www.impacttectonics.org/KMLZs/2016%20GCH%20Ocean%20currents.kmz
[5] http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4544