After some time the water from the depth returns to the surface, this can actually happen in any part of the ocean, and then the cycle goes all over again. The more times the cycle passes, the more heat goes to the atmosphere and the warmer the local climate is.

The earth rotation also plays the significant role in the global ocean circulation. The currents seem to be deflected to the right side in the area of northern hemisphere and to the left side in the other one. The effect is well known by the name of “Coriolis force”. This is what results the highs and lows in the seas all over the world. You can even observe the changes of the sea depths on the interactive map provided by TOPEX/Poseidon.

With the modern knowledge about the Coriolis force the scientists are now able to map all the currents of the ocean. For this they also tend to use the information coming from the satellites in a stream mode. The currents are mapped every ten days on regular basis.

The possible variations in the water circulation can result the changes in climate due to the heat transportation. Some currents are irregular and tent to change every 2-5 years.

Another case is about the phytoplankton, small green plants that are also the general food source for a lot of ocean inhabitants.  Many species are strongly tied to this food chain, which meant they won’t get a chance to survive if the plankton and phytoplankton disappear from the water. However the so needed plants grow much faster in the cool water, which meant the global warming ocean will cause the severe emission of the phytoplankton, a lot of creatures are going to stay hungry or even die.

The slow growing of the plants will slow down even more until at some drastic point it will just stop. The fish will start disappearing an so will the ocean mammals and birds who usually used the fish as the main food source. Now we can see that the tiny green plants can easily affect the entire life circle in the ocean. Imagine, the phytoplankton is providing as much photosynthesis as all the plants on the land.

The other terrifying statistics tell us that the plants are responsible for the consumption of the dangerous carbon dioxide. If this gas is not consumed, the global warming ocean is going to go on with the drastic speed.

The climate is depending on several factors, and one of them is the condition of the ocean. Monitoring the temperature of the sea surface and the winds on the ocean, we can predict the time we have left until the changes in climate will become irreversible.

One more thing is about transporting some tender items like living animals. You can imagine the transportation of the horse in a plane? Still the animal will feel much better on the ship; moreover it will be not so dangerous for the crew and passengers.

There are a lot of companies that offer various ways and destinations for the global ocean freight transportation. Still you shall define all the aspects of the shipping before you actually sent your goods. The load can be transported to the board of the ship or might be placed on the deck. It might be transferred to the warehouse or just be left near the ship. There are a lot of various aspects here, so try to figure them out before you have to send the load – other way your partner might experience the unneeded problems and your work might get spoiled for no actual reason.

Sometimes the company offering the global ocean freight doesn’t follow the contract or do not tell all the aspects at once assuming the client knows everything. Do not hesitate to ask questions and take your time to be sure you understand all the procedure.

These vents occur at oceanic “spreading centers,” mountainous ridges where magma from deep within the Earth’s crust forces its way up to the ocean floor, creating new ocean crust and pushing the old crust out of the way. This is the engine that drives apart the Earth’s tectonic plates, moving continents about and causing volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

From time to time, hydrothermal vents, known as “black smokers,” occur along these ridges. They are underwater geysers. At these vent sites, cold ocean water seeps down through cracks in the seafloor to hot spots underground. The water gets superheated to several hundred degrees Celsius and is spit back up in a mineral-rich broth of scalding fluid. And in this bizarre environment, life flourishes.

Until a little over 20 years ago, no one knew that deep-sea hydrothermal vents existed, much less that they were teeming with life. The first such vent was discovered in 1977 east of the Galapagos Islands. Since then, dozens of vents have been discovered and explored along ridges in the Atlantic and Pacific.

Active vents are inhabited by a complex ecosystem of organisms containing both microbial and more complex animal life. (There is no plant life in the deep ocean, because sunlight cannot reach down that far to drive the process of photosynthesis on which plants depend.) The animal life includes tube worms, shrimp, clams, mussels and crabs.

Last year scientists discovered a vent along a ridge in the Indian Ocean. (It’s located south of the southern tip of India and east of the African island nation of Madagascar.) An expedition is currently underway to explore this vent. Japanese scientists visited this vent in August, 2000, but spent only four days there. The new expedition plans to spend several weeks at the new vent. Cindy Lee Van Dover, of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA, is chief scientist on the research cruise.

Van Dover has been exploring ocean vents for many years. “I really never thought that one could be an explorer in this day and age. But in the ocean, it’s absolutely true. You’re going places that nobody’s ever been before.”

Van Dover studies the morphology (body shape) of vent animal life. Mussels are her specialty. Bob Vrijenhoek, a senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, CA, takes a different approach. He studies vent animals, as well as the bacteria that inhabit the vents, by analyzing their DNA. Members of Vrijenhoek’s research group are participating in the Indian Ocean expedition.

The study of how animal populations evolve and disperse geographically is known as “biogeography.” Hydrothermal vents offer a unique opportunity for biogeographers because the underwater environment is affected by fewer factors than are land environments. “People study biogeography on land and it’s always got superimposed on it the effects of latitude and climate,” says Van Dover. Hydrothermal vents, in contrast, are “largely decoupled from climate. They are isolated from what goes on above.”

Most vent organisms, scientists believe, can exist in their adult form only near an active vent site (although many of these organisms have swimming larval stages, which can travel for great distances). Individual vents remain active for anywhere from a few decades to a few thousand years. When a vent shuts off, the adult animals living there die. Yet as soon as a new vent emerges, it is rapidly colonized. Within a few years, a new vent undergoes a complete transformation from uninhabited to fully populated.

By studying the similarities and differences among the animals that live at different vents, scientists have begun to piece together a picture of how organisms move from one vent to another, what are the natural barriers to such movement, and how the geography of the deep ocean affects the evolution of the species that inhabit it.

Most of the research into the fauna (animal life) that inhabit hydrothermal vent systems has been done in the northern region of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and along the East Pacific Rise, which runs roughly parallel to the west coast of South America. Although similar types of animals can be found at both Atlantic and Pacific vent sites, there is more similarity among the vent ecosystems along the same ridge than there is between the two ridges. For example, shrimp are found at both Atlantic and Pacific sites, but one particular type of shrimp, known as “swarming shrimp,” is found only in the Atlantic.

The Pacific is a very old ocean, while the Atlantic is relatively young, having fully formed only about 120 million years ago. One question scientists are interested in is how the animals that inhabited the Pacific ridge system made their way to the younger Atlantic ridge.

Above: The Atlantic Ocean formed around 120 million years ago, as the continents drifted apart. Courtesy Nova Scotia Museum.

One theory is that some of the organisms may have arrived by way of the Tethys Sea. Don’t look for it on a map, unless it’s a map of what Earth looked like 100 to 200 million years ago. All that’s left of it today is the Mediterranean. The Tethys Sea was a much larger body of water, which once connected the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. Scientists theorize that animals could have migrated along ocean ridges from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, and from there through the Tethys Sea to the North Atlantic.

Some vent organisms, for example, vent shrimp, haven’t been around all that long. They are thought to have evolved only 20 million years ago. So they couldn’t have arrived by way of the Tethys Sea, because by 20 million years ago it had closed up. Another possible route for organisms to have traveled is through the Indian Ocean around the Cape of Good Hope to the South Atlantic.

In either case, the Indian Ocean vents may provide a “missing link” between Atlantic and the Pacific vent ecosystems. Early photographs from the Indian Ocean site taken by Japanese scientists show shrimp and mussels that appear very similar to those found at Atlantic vents. “If you had shown me one of those pictures and asked me where that picture came from,” says Vrijenhoek, “I’d have told you it came right from the mid-Atlantic ridge.” But, he cautions, “we could get fooled just by superficial appearance.” He is looking forward to the results of the DNA analysis that his colleagues will perform on these animals.

Recently developed, highly efficient DNA-based tools have dramatically changed the way scientists study evolution. Scientists like Vrijenhoek use these tools to determine the similarities and the slight mutational changes between the genes in organisms found at different vent sites. Using this information leads to a better understanding how the life cycle of an organism interacts with the changing typography of the seafloor to affect both the geographic dispersal and evolution of that organism. “We do the same thing that a forensic scientist would do,” Vrijenhoek explains. “We basically extract DNA from the organism and then we use that DNA to look at the degree of relationships within populations, and then between populations.”

For example, Vrijenhoek and his colleagues have found what he calls “genetic discontinuities” among populations of vent amphipods (small crustaceans) that don’t appear among populations of other vent organisms. This is due, he explains, to the fact that there is no swimming larval stage in the amphipods’ life cycle. As a result, one population of organisms can easily be cut off from another, causing the two populations to drift apart genetically.

Says Vrijenhoek, “The amphipods probably just ride up and down these ridge axes like a corridor. So if there’s a disruption in that corridor, through a transform fault or lack of habitat, or something like that, they simply can’t get from point A to point B.” The isolated populations then evolve along separate pathways.

Genetic isolation is less likely to occur among populations of animals that have do have a swimming larval stage, because they can more easily cross such physical barriers. This is just what is seen in mussels, clams and tube worms.

Although there is plenty of work yet to be done in the Indian Ocean, Van Dover and Vrijenhoek are also excited about taking a look at other vent sites that remain completely unexplored. The southern Atlantic is one such region.

But if given a choice (and funding), Van Dover would head for the Arctic Ocean, because of its isolation. “The Arctic Basin’s been separated from the Atlantic and the Pacific since the Arctic Ocean was formed by shallow fill. So the deep fauna of the Atlantic and the Pacific, the ones that occur at the vents, may not have gotten up into the Arctic. If you wanted to pick the place to go find the most unusual vent organisms, I’d have to choose the Arctic.”

If we were to give relative time on Earth Day to different habitats, we would be talking about the oceans for 18 out of the 24 hours. Nearly three-quarters of the Earth’s surface is ocean. Although a costly lesson for many Americans, El Nino taught us that the oceans drive our weather and climate for people everywhere in the Western Hemisphere even if they do not live near an ocean. The oceans are a vital part of our national security, and a critical element in international trade and economic development.

In addition, more than half of the world’s population have chosen to live where the ocean meets the land, and that area comprises less than two percent of the Earth’s surface. These fertile coastal zones provide food, recreation, and natural resources for all Americans. Once it was thought that the oceans were so vast that they and their ecosystems could absorb the impacts of human activities without significant change. People no longer think this way.

There is increasing concern about the health of the oceans. Bellwether marine ecosystems, such as coral atolls, kelp forests, and estuaries are threatened, and many important fisheries around the world are in decline. In the new millennium, we must dedicate ourselves to learning about the oceans. In order to address these emerging issues and protect our ocean resources, greater knowledge is needed not only about the diversity and abundance of life in our oceans, but also the physical processes that drive our ocean planet. Ocean science must become a national priority.

The Consortium for Oceanographic Research and Education (CORE) believes that development of an integrated ocean observing system is a critical first step that will provide scientists, resource managers, and policymakers with the biological, chemical, physical, and geological data necessary to begin to meet our ocean challenges. An ocean observing system will provide the information needed to detect and predict climate variability, facilitate safe and efficient marine operations, ensure national security, manage living resource, preserve and restore healthy marine ecosystems, mitigate natural hazards, and ensure public health.

For thousands of years, humans have gazed out across the ocean and pondered what lay beyond the horizon. What we recognize today is that what lies below that horizon is just as important as what lies beyond it. With breakthroughs in technology, we are now poised to better understand the role oceans play in our lives and we now have the tools to better understand and manage our ocean resources. This Earth Day Americans must recognize that we are indeed an ocean planet and that what we don’t know about the oceans can have a profound impact on all of our lives.

The occasion is the Third Annual Meeting of the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans. This Partnership is a registered not-for-profit society that maintains its office at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography inDartmouth, Nova Scotia, but it has world-wide membership. Its members are leading oceanographic institutions of the world. The purpose of this recently-formed society is to:

- promote observations of the oceans

- improve scientific knowledge

- interpret scientific knowledge to policy makers

- enhance public awareness of oceanic issues

- provide training and technology transfer in oceanography

Though several international organisations exist to promote collaboration among oceanographers, the Partnership is the first organisation that brings together major oceanographic institutions under a single umbrella. Underlying this new effort to promote collaboration, co-operation and co-ordination among oceanographic institutions is the realisation that many of the problems that face us today are global in scope, and that we have to work together in a coherent fashion to be able to address these issues at the global scale. The Partnership recognises that ocean studies and their applications are truly international activities: the oceans do not recognise national boundaries.

The Partnership encourages their members to abandon a purely parochial vision in favour of a global perspective. At last their meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the participants unanimously adopted a Declaration that calls for the need to enhance ocean observations in the Southern Hemisphere: two thirds of the world oceans are in the Southern Hemisphere, and most of the major world economies and world leaders in oceanography are in the Northern Hemisphere. The goal of global observations therefore will not become a reality without a concerted efforted to bridge the north-south divide.

As part of their strategy to address these issues, the Partnership launched a fellowship programme this year which allows scientists and technicians from developing countries and economies in transition to travel to leading oceanographic institutions for training on specialised subjects. Thirteen fellowships have been awarded this year, and three of these winners are being hosted by Canada: the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (Dartmouth), Dalhousie University (Halifax), and Institute of Ocean Sciences (Vancouver Island) will be home for a few months to visitors from India, Uruguay and Russia, thanks to this international training programme.

Dr. Mike Sinclair, Director of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography is a member of the Executive Committee of the Partnership. The Chair is Dr. Charles Kennel, from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, California.

Over forty participants from some thirteen foreign countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States of America) will be converging on White Point this month, along with representatives of other major international organisations with oceanographic interests. On their agenda are plans to establish and enhance a global network of long-term observations of the oceans. They will also be discussing the need to promote biological observations: there is much to be learned about how life in the oceans will respond to climate change, and about marine bio-diversity. Also on the agenda are more plans to help each other, learn about each other, and promote collaboration and understanding among oceanographic nations.

White Point – Predicting climate change depends on understanding ocean behaviour as a major climate regulator, scientists say.

Researchers from the world’s top oceanographic institutions gathered in White Point this week to talk about oceans and climate and the inroads scientists have made in monitoring oceans internationally.

The oceanographers are members of the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans, formed three years ago to promote long-term collaboration in ocean surveillance. The group’s headquarters is at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth.

About 40 delegates from 19 institutions in Canada, the United States, Chile, France, Japan, India, Holland and Brazil took part in the three-day session.

“There’s no country in the world that’s unaffected by climate change. It’s the most enveloping environmental problem that we have,” said Charles Kennel, meeting chairman and a director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.

“Everyone is affected by it so there’s a motivation for everybody, particularly the advanced nations, to contribute to the scientific solutions.”

This year, the ocean-watch partnership launched a series of robotic floats, about the size of torpedoes, that drift below the surface to measure temperature and salinity. The floats surface every two weeks to communicate information to a satellite. The data is collected at centres in California and France.

There are about 300 floats in the North Atlantic and the north and central Pacific.

“We want 3,000 of these little probes wandering about the world’s oceans telling us what’s happening . . . wandering with the currents, keeping watch on the behaviour of the ocean,” Mr. Kennel said.

It is the ocean in concert with greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that determine how the climate is going to evolve, Mr. Kennel said.

“It’s the only way we have of gauging what kind of decisions we’re going to face in the future. . . . Our guesses for what will happen will become more accurate if we can make the observations of the ocean more complete and more accurate.”