Oceanography Chapter 2
Terms
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- Published a chart of the Gulf Stream system in 1769.
- Franklin, Benjamin
- British clockmaker who invented the modern chronometer in 1760.
- Harrison, John (1693-1776)
- Officer in the British Royal Navy who led the first European voyages of scientific discovery.
- Cook, James (1728-1779)
- Italian explorer in the service of Spain who discovered islands in the Caribbean in 1492. Although traditionally credited as the discoverer of America, he never actually sighted the North American continent.
- Columbus, Christopher (1451-1506)
- The first wholly scientific oceanographic expedition, 1872-76. Named for the steam corvette used in the voyage.
- Challenger Expedition
- An English naturalist, codiscoverer of the principle of natural selection, ca. 1880.
- Darwin, Charles
- Greek scholar and librarian at Alexandria who first calculated the circumference of the Earth about 230 b.c.
- Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276-192 b.c.)
- An American naval officer and historian. He stressed the interdependence of military and commercial control of seaborne commerce, and the ability of safe lines of transportation and communication to influence the outcomes of conflicts.
- Mahan, Alfred Thayer
- A follow on to TOPEX/Poseidon that includes a scatterometer which measures ocean surface winds, a radiometer that will sense water vapor and sea surface height.
- Jason-1
- Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain who led the first expedition to circumnavigate the Earth, 1519-22. He was killed in the Philippines.
- Magellan, Ferdinand (c. 1480-1521)
- The greatest collection of writings in the ancient world, founded in the third century b.c. by Alexander the Great. Could be considered the first university.
- Library of Alexandria
- Father of physical oceanography. Probably the first person to undertake the systematic study of the ocean as a full-time occupation, and probably the first to understand the global interlocking of currents, wind flow, and weather.
- Maury, Matthew (1806-1873)
- A large group of Pacific islands lying east of Melanesia and Micronesia and extending from the Hawaiian Islands south to New Zealand and east to Easter Island.
- Polynesia
- German Atlantic expedition begun in 1925; the first to use an echo sounder and other modern optical and electronic instrumentation.
- Meteor Expedition
- Prince of Portugal who established a school for the study of geography, seamanship, shipbuilding, and navigation.
- Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460)
- The means by which a nation extends its military capacity onto the ocean.
- Sea power
- Joint French-U.S. satellite carrying radars that can determine the height of the sea surface with unprecedented accuracy. Other experiments in this five-year program include sensing water vapor over the ocean, determining the precise location of ocean cu
- TOPEX/Poseidon:
- Launched by NASA in 1997, carries a color scanner called SeaWiFS (sea-viewing wide-field-of-view sensor). This device measures the distribution of chlorophyll at the ocean surface, a measure of marine productivity.
- SEASTAR
- First satellite dedicated to oceanic research, launched in 1978.
- Seasat:
- The first U.S. oceanographic research voyage, launched in 1838.
- United States Exploring Expedition
- A person who makes maps and charts.
- cartographer
- Seafaring Scandinavian raiders who ravaged the coasts of Europe around a.d. 780-1070.
- Vikings
- A map that depicts mostly water and the adjoining land areas.
- chart
- The technique of finding one's position on Earth by reference to the apparent positions of stars, planets, the moon, and the sun.
- celestial navigation
- A very consistent clock. It doesn't need to tell accurate time, but its rate of gain or loss must be constant and known exactly so that accurate time may be calculated.
- chronometer
- An instrument for showing direction by means of a magnetic needle swinging freely on a pivot and pointing to magnetic north.
- compass
- Regularly spaced imaginary lines on the Earth's surface running north and south and converging at the poles.
- longitude
- Satellite-based navigation system that provides a geographical position-longitude and latitude-accurate to less than 1 meter.
- global positioning system (GPS)
- A device that reflects sound off the ocean bottom to sense water depth. Its accuracy is affected by the variability of the speed of sound through water.
- echo sounder
- The science of the ocean. See also marine science
- oceanography
- Traveling (usually by sea) with a specific purpose.
- voyaging
- Latin form of okeanos, the Greek name for the "ocean river" past Gibraltar.
- oceanus
- Measurement of the depth of a body of water.
- sounding
- The process of determining the age of rocks by observing the ratio of unstable radioactive elements to stable decay products.
- radiometric dating
- Regularly spaced imaginary lines on the Earth's surface running parallel to the equator.
- latitude