Children often ask different questions, which parents do not always find answers to. This situation is familiar to many. It would seem a banal question: why is the water in the ocean salty, baffles adults, and not only them. The opinions of scientists on this issue are still different.
From the school curriculum, we remember that all rivers flow into the seas and oceans, and, as you know, river water is fresh. But rivers contain little salt, just like rainwater, so why does the oceans stay so salty?
Several hypotheses were put forward, which are still relevant today!
- At first, scientists believed that the rivers were not entirely fresh, because for many years they washed salts and minerals from the earth's rocks, carrying them into the sea and ocean waters. And the proof of this hypothesis is the Salt Lake and the Dead Sea, which are 10 times saltier than the oceans. But later, thanks to accurate calculations and analyzes, it was found that rivers could not saturate the oceans with such a large amount of salt.
- Perhaps it all started with the primitive ocean, which consisted of a saturated solution of sulfur, methane, chlorine and carbon dioxide. For a share pure water accounts for only 75%. This data was obtained during the study of basaltic deposits and fossilized remains of various ancient sea creatures that are billions of years old. This was the initial composition of the super solution, in which the first life began to emerge, in the form of unicellular organisms.
- Other hypotheses have been put forward in which volcanoes could affect the composition of the water of the ancient ocean. As a result of volcanic activity, a large amount of acid vapor was released into the atmosphere, which, condensing, spilled onto the earth in the form of acid rain. Over time, the activity of the volcanoes decreased, the atmosphere cleared, and there was less acid rain. Thus, the composition of the water in the oceans has returned to normal.
- Recently, hydrothermal vents have been discovered at the bottom of the oceans. They are formed at the expense of sea \u200b\u200bwater, which, seeping into the earth's rocks, becomes much hotter and is thrown back, bringing with it a large amount of mineral substances.
It should be noted that the percentage of salt is different in different seas, that is, each sea and ocean has its own individual composition. For example, the average salt content in seawater is 35g. per 1 liter, but in the Red Sea salinity reaches 41g. This is due to climatic features. Water in the Red Sea evaporates more intensively due to the high temperature and low humidity. But even under such conditions, the given amount of salt remains unchanged and remains constant.
Despite various studies, scientists have come to a single conclusion
The salinity of water in the oceans and seas remains at the same level, regardless of how much precipitation fell and how much fresh river water arrived. Why it happens?
Most of the salts are spent on the formation of new mineral rocks, thereby normalizing the composition of the water. Salts participate in the formation of the embryos of marine life.
It is impossible to say which of these hypotheses is correct, because each has confirmation. Which one to believe is everyone's business. Many will prefer the hypothesis about the ancient ocean, someone adheres to the hypothesis about volcanoes and precipitation, and everyone will be right in their own way.
Answering the question of your little "why", you can safely resort to any of the above explanation of the salinity of water in the seas and oceans.
Water occupies most of the Earth's territory. The vast majority of water is found in oceans and seas, and it is salty. According to Ocean Service, oceans contain over 3% sodium chloride (common salt).
Why is the water in the seas and oceans salty and where does this salt come from? Let's try to understand the answer to this question in the article.
General information
It happened that the sailors of ships lost in sea waters or wrecked, died of thirst, although there was a lot of water around. Few people know that sea water has a composition that is not suitable for the human body. She has a specific bitter-salty taste, which is given by salts dissolved in water.
The rivers flowing into the seas have fresh water, in which the concentration of dissolved salts is much lower than in the sea. But how is this possible, why is the water in the sea salty and fresh in the river?
For 4 billion years, continents have been watered with rainwater. Water, penetrating the rocks, finds its way into the sea. She carries dissolved salt with her into it. In the course of a long geological history, the amount of salt gradually increases. This is one of the simplest hypotheses.
A little about the benefits and dangers of salt
Before we find out why the sea is salty, but the river is not, let's decide whether salt is useful or harmful. As it turned out, there are huge reserves of salt on Earth, both in the seas (sea) and in the bowels of the earth (stone). Sodium chloride is scientifically proven to be a vital substance. It has long been known to people that salt is a rather useful and valuable substance, necessary for both people and animals.
However, there is also a negative side: an excessive amount of salt in the soil leads to a decrease in its fertility. As a result, desertification occurs (for example, in Australia).
Why is the sea water salty
Part of the salt in the water comes from the seabed, which contains rocks containing salt, from which salt gets into the water. Sodium chloride can also come from volcanic valves. But to a greater extent, salts come from the continents. On average, one kilogram of sea water contains up to 35 grams of salt, and most of it (about 85%) is sodium chloride (common kitchen salt).
Sources of salt entering the sea:
- Weathering of rocks: when stones get wet, substances are washed off from them, and salts are carried away to the seas (a similar effect occurs with rocks on the seabed).
- Underwater volcano explosions: they release lava into the water, which reacts with seawater and dissolves some substances in it.
Water has the ability to penetrate deep ocean cracks in the mid-ocean ridges. The stones are hot there (there is often lava at the bottom). Water, heating up in cracks, dissolves a large amount of salts from underwater rocks that enter the seawater.
Why is the sea water salty? Because sodium chloride is the most common salt in it due to the fact that it is it that dissolves best of all. However, silicon and calcium are also brought into the oceans by rivers in large quantities. Moreover, there are not so many of them in sea water. This is due to the fact that calcium is "picked up" by various aquatic animals (corals, gastropods and bivalves), and silicon is used by microscopic algae (cell walls are created).
The sun causes huge amounts of water to evaporate in the seas and oceans. Salt remains from the evaporated water and is concentrated in the sea. Therefore, the water becomes salty. It should be noted that some salt is deposited on the seabed. Thanks to this, the balance of the concentration of salt in the water is maintained, otherwise the sea would become even more salty.
Are the versions true?
Where does the salt in the sea come from? Which hypothesis is the most correct? No version can be considered the most correct. Water in the sea and ocean has been forming over millions of years, so scientists have no reliable evidence of its salinity. It is known that the water washes away the mainland land, which does not contain as much salt. The salinity of water has changed in different geological epochs. And every sea has a different salt concentration and different properties. The density of water is different, there are differences in freezing points.
It turns out that everyone knows the fact of salinity, but the exact reason for this phenomenon remains a mystery.
Some Factors Affecting Salt Concentration in Water
Answering the question why the water in the sea is salty, one should also find out why the concentration of salt in different seas differs. The salinity of the water varies depending on the location of the natural reservoir. The least salty oceans and seas are located closer to the north and south poles, where the sun does not shine much, and therefore the water does not evaporate. In addition, the water is diluted by the waters of melted glaciers.
The waters of the seas near the equator evaporate more due to higher temperatures. This factor also affects the increased density of water in these places. This process can also take place on some large lakes, which also turn into salty ones. An example is the Dead Sea, where the density and salinity of the water allows people to lie quietly on its surface.
The salt concentration is also influenced by the sea water temperature. The Baltic Sea can be cited as an example. Due to low water temperatures, it contains 8 times less salt than, for example, the Persian Gulf.
Finally
The above hypotheses of the causes of water salinity in the seas and oceans are the opinion of scientists at the current level of knowledge.
One fact is interesting. If from all the oceans and seas existing on Earth today evaporated, the remaining salt would form a layer up to 75 meters high throughout the world.
Have you ever wondered what you would do if you were on a desert island in the open ocean? You would first like to find food, get fire, make cover and find water. Water? That's right, and although you may be surrounded by an endless ocean, those of you who have been to the sea beach know that sea water is not suitable for drinking.
Why not? Because . But why is sea water salty and unsuitable for drinking?
Ocean water is salty because it contains a large amount of dissolved minerals. These minerals are often referred to as "salts". Depending on which part of the world you are in, sea water contains approximately 3.5% salt. The water around has a higher salinity, while the northern waters contain less salt.
At the bottom there is a huge amount of minerals that are destroyed and rise to the surface by natural ocean currents. As the movement of water and waves erodes the ocean floor, minerals dissolve in the water and the amount of salt increases. This is how the ocean constantly replenishes its salinity.
The oceans and seas also get some of their salt from streams, rivers and lakes. While this may seem counterintuitive, since these bodies of water contain fresh water, you might be surprised to learn that all lakes, rivers and streams contain some amount of dissolved salts. However, the concentration of salts in these bodies of water is much lower than in the oceans, so their water seems less salty than oceanic water.
Salt cannot accumulate in most lakes because they have outlets such as rivers and streams. These outlets allow water to flow to the oceans, carrying minerals with the flow.
On the other hand, it is an example of a body of water without an outlet. Minerals that drain into the Dead Sea cannot be released into the open ocean because there is no drain. Due to this, the Dead Sea contains some of the saltiest waters on Earth.
In fact, up to 35% of the salts are found in the waters of the Dead Sea! This is nearly ten times the concentration of salt in the oceans. The salt water of the Dead Sea is deadly to most living things, so you won't find fish or sea creatures there. Only a few species of bacteria and algae can survive in the harsh conditions of the Dead Sea. That's why it's called Dead!
While you certainly won't want to drink the water from this sea, you can swim in it. Due to the high concentration of salt, the density of the water in the Dead Sea is much higher than in fresh water. This allows the swimmer to stay well on the water surface. Diving into the Dead Sea is a bit like dropping a plastic lid into a bowl of water. The dense water makes it easy to swim, even effortlessly. In fact, the water makes swimmers so buoyant that it is very difficult for them to get to the bottom or swim underwater.
Since childhood, we have become accustomed to the fact that the sea water, unlike rivers, is salty. Even having never been to the sea, we already knew about it, because our parents and friends told us about it, we read about it in books.
Today we take this fact for granted, and do not really think about why the seas and oceans are salty. However, the time has come to consider this issue within the framework of the articles on our site, so that in the future it will no longer bother you.
Why the seas and oceans are salty
As you know, water has enormous potential and power. This is most eloquently said by all sorts of natural disasters, which were caused by various tsunamis and hurricanes. Water can easily destroy many things, but it takes time, sometimes even a very long one.
The same destructive effect of water does not stop in front of all kinds of mountains, rocks and other natural structures, which contain many different chemical elements, including those containing salt inside. During the existence of the earth, all kinds of water bodies present in the world's oceans have destroyed and dissolved many objects that were able to saturate water with salts. However, the question arises as to why the oceans and seas are always salty, but the rivers, unlike them, are not.
And here it is necessary to recall such a concept as the water cycle in nature. Since school, we remember that water is constantly moving through the biosphere of our planet. However, now, using this phenomenon as an example, it is necessary to track the movement of salts, which, according to the most plausible and rational theories, has been going on since ancient times as follows:
- The rivers on their way sharpened stones, rocks, dissolved all possible minerals and other substances, absorbing salt from them.
- Water from the rivers flowed along its course to the place where it flowed into the seas.
- The seas and oceans were saturated with salt water from the rivers.
Of course, the water cycle also has a further action - evaporation, which occurs both in rivers and in the seas and oceans. However, it is important to understand that in the process of evaporation, the water goes into the clouds, and the salt with which it was saturated remains in the seas and oceans. The cyclical repetition of this process, which took more than one millennium, and led to the fact that today the seas and oceans consist of salt water.
As for the rivers, they continue to destroy all kinds of minerals and carry salt to the oceans, but the salt content in fresh water is so low that it is almost impossible for a person to feel it.
Have you ever thought about this question? Meanwhile, for many years he caused heated debates.
If you evaporate a liter of ocean water, about 35 grams of salt will remain on the sides and bottom of the pot.
Is it a lot or a little - a teaspoon for about a glass of water? The most distrustful can try ...
If we calculate how much salt is dissolved in the entire World Ocean, the figures will turn out to be very impressive. Suffice it to give an example: if all the salt extracted from the ocean is scattered in an even layer over the surface of continents, archipelagos and even islands, then it will cover the land with a layer in which the Leningrad St. Isaac's Cathedral will be hidden!
But here's what is curious: every year rivers carry out about a billion tons of salts and about 400 million tons of silicates into the oceans, and meanwhile, neither the salinity of the ocean water, nor its composition changes noticeably. What's the matter here?
With silicates, it is more or less clear: they immediately precipitate. And the salt? .. Apparently, the particles of salt with the spray of waves of the finest dust rise into the air and are picked up by the air currents. Tiny crystals rise up and begin to act as nuclei for condensation of atmospheric moisture. Droplets of water are formed around them, which collect in clouds. The wind drives the clouds far from the ocean, and there they rain down, returning the stolen salt to the earth's crust. And again her journey begins with water to the ocean. This is how the cycle turns out ...
And yet why is the ocean salty? Was he like that from the very beginning, or did he gradually become saline? To answer these questions, scientists had to first solve the problem of the origin of the ocean in general. Was its hydrosphere formed together with the Earth or later?
For a long time, it was believed that the planets were initially in a molten state. It is clear that in this case there was no need to talk about any water on the surface. In this state of affairs, steam should have flown over the red-hot Earth, which from time to time would pour down hot rains and then evaporate again and collect in clouds and clouds. Only gradually, as the planet cooled down, water from the atmosphere began to linger in the grooves and depressions of the relief. The first seas and oceans appeared. What could they be? Of course, fresh, if they come from water from the atmosphere, from rain. And only then, many years later, the waters of the World Ocean salted from the salt carried into the oceans by rivers from crust... This rather harmonious picture existed for many years.
However, today everything has changed in her. First of all, today most scientists believe that the Earth, like the rest of the planets Solar system, formed from a cold cloud of gas and dust. Blinded under the influence of the forces of gravity from the huge ice and iron-stone blocks that flew in space. Then gradually the substance of this initial planetary coma began to exfoliate. The young planet was warming up. The denser, heavier boulders sank deeper, closer to the center, and lighter substances, including water and gases, were pushed to the surface. Gases formed the primary atmosphere, and water formed the hydrosphere. Hot jets under high pressure made their way up from the depths. On the way, they were saturated with mineral salts. And the water that escaped from captivity on the surface of the young Earth, probably, looked more like a saturated brine, there were so many dissolved chemical elements in it. And this meant that from the very beginning, from the very birth, the ocean was already salty. It may not be the same as today, but that is still to come.
The idea of \u200b\u200bthe deep, magmatic origin of ocean water was expressed by the Russian and Soviet scientist Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky back in the 30s of our century. Today, his point of view is supported by the majority of experts around the world.
Academician A.P. Vinogradov believes that the ocean "survived" three stages of its development, starting from birth. The first of them occurred during the "lifeless" state of our planet. It was from four to three billion years ago. The biosphere did not yet exist on Earth. The world's oceans were most likely then small in volume and shallow. Volcanoes threw out from the bowels a mass of solutions, volatile fumes, which contained all kinds of acids. The rains from the sky poured hot and acrid. From such additives, the water in the ocean should have had a pronounced acidic reaction.
True, this "acidic stage" in the development of the ocean could not last long. The hot solutions that escaped to the surface reacted with salts, bound metals and decreased both their acidity and the acidity of the primary ocean.
And then at some point in time, about three billion years ago, life began to form in the primordial soup. First the most primitive, then more and more complex.
The era of the formation of life lasted an extremely long time. Living organisms extracted carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and released free oxygen, which at first was practically absent in the primary atmosphere. Oxygen unrecognizably changed everything, even the main property of the atmosphere: it turned from reducing into oxidizing. Oxygen oxidized and precipitated, made elements such as iron and sulfur, calcium and magnesium, which were carried in the smoke of volcanoes above the Earth's surface, less mobile. They precipitated and accumulated in the water. Boron and fluorine formed poorly soluble salts, which also precipitated. The water in the ocean cooled down, and silica ceased to dissolve in it. The smallest living organisms learned to use it to build their shells, which, after dying off, went into precipitation ...
About six hundred million years ago, the composition of the water in the oceans and the composition of the atmosphere more or less stabilized. This is confirmed by the remains of extinct animals that paleontologists find in the deep layers of the earth.
I think that you should be clear: the salinity of water is a very important characteristic of the oceans. And if it suddenly changes in some area, this is a signal: it means that here you need to expect surprises from Neptune.
Seawater samples are taken using special instruments - bottles. The shells are simple. Conventional hollow cylinder with two easy-to-lock covers. This process takes place semi-automatically with the help of a weight lowered from above when the bottles reach the required depth. This is done in the following way: a garland with bottles tied to a long cable is lowered from the board of a research vessel into the water. At the same time, they make sure that each device paired with a thermometer is at its specified horizon. Then you should wait a little for the thermometers to come into thermal equilibrium with the surrounding water. And when the waiting time expires, a weight is passed from above along the cable. A split weight with a hole in the middle slides, gets to the first bottle, releases its covers, which snap tightly. In addition, in this case, the thermometers are overturned, fixing the measured temperature, and the second weight is released - the second weight. She does the same with the second bottle, the third with the third, and so on until the very last instrument at depth. After that, the whole garland can be pulled up.
But the main thing begins in the laboratory, where the chlorine content of the water is determined using rather complex chemical methods, and then it is recalculated for salinity. True, for last years engineers have designed instruments that measure salinity directly from the conductivity of water. After all, the more salt in the water, the less resistance it has electric current... There is even a special so-called STG-probe (STG - salinity, temperature, depth), which shows the continuous distribution of all three critical parameters ocean water.
Typically ocean salinity ranges between 33 and 38 ppm. (1 ppm is equal to a tenth of a percent. And to make a solution with a saturation of 1 ppm, you need to dissolve 1 gram of salt in a liter of fresh water). But there are areas in which the salinity is different from the norm. There may be outlets of underground rivers.
Ocean - "kitchen of the weather"
What is "weather"? Some people take this concept lightly. They say: “Weather? Look out the window - this will be the weather. " In fact, the weather is the state of the atmosphere at a given moment and in a given place. If we consider the weather regime on average over many years, then this is already the climate. There is no need to say much about the fact that it is important to be able to predict the weather and know how the climate will change. This is clear to everyone. Improving methods for forecasting weather and other natural phenomena is an important national economic task. It is clear: the harvest depends on the weather, the construction work carried out by our country depends on the weather, people's health finally depends on the weather.
You have the right to ask: "What does the ocean have to do with it, if we live almost in the center of a huge continent?"
To answer this question, I will tell you about one interesting work of scientists.
For quite some time, forecasters noticed that the average annual temperature in some parts of the North Atlantic periodically fluctuates. Now it rises by 1.5 and even 3 degrees, then it goes down. Experts have assigned these phenomena the names of "warm sea" and "cold sea". At the same time, the temperature deviations kept pace with the changes atmospheric pressure... In the case of the "warm sea", an anticyclone with increased pressure was established over Bermuda, while in the "cold sea" in the same area, the pressure decreased. At the same time, the border between the warm Gulf Stream and the cold Labrador current also changed.
But the most interesting thing was that exactly one month later the situation over Bermuda began to affect in a completely definite way in Scotland and Scandinavia, after 1.5 months - in Poland, after 2 months weather changes reached the European part of our country. It turned out, as Academician LM Brekhovskikh wrote: “If you want to know what the weather will be like in two months in the regions of the European part of the USSR, then carefully study what is happening in the North Atlantic off the coast of Iceland - what are the sea currents there, what is the heat storage water, air temperature, etc. For an appropriate forecast for four months ahead, it is necessary to clarify in the same detail what is being done in the Caribbean Sea region.
For example, when the "cold sea" regime was established in January, it can be said with sufficient certainty that the February temperature in Switzerland will be three degrees below normal. And this will surely entail excessive consumption of electricity and fuel. When the "warm sea" regime is established in 2 months, wait for long cyclones with rains and low pressure ...
The mechanism of these connections is not entirely clear to scientists so far. Comprehensive studies of the ocean and atmosphere are just beginning. Back in the 70s, meteorologists planned to implement a large international program PIGAP - Global Atmospheric Processes Research Program. For what? To make weather forecasts more accurate. At first, the meteorologists wanted to do it on their own and even developed all the points of the program. But very little time passed, and it turned out that they could not do without oceanologists. And only when about 40 research vessels from different countries (including 13 Soviet ones) went to different regions of the World Ocean, when airplanes and artificial meteorological satellites of the Earth took an active part in this work, things went well. It may seem strange to some why this ocean is so closely related to the atmosphere. Let's try to figure it out.
Thermal balance of the planet
The main energy lever that controls the weather on Earth is heat! And where does our planet get it from? Scientists have calculated that more than 99.9 percent of all the energy that determines the state of the weather and the nature of the climate, as well as that which sets the ocean water in motion, comes from the Sun. Of course, some warmth seeps out from the bowels of the earth. But its share is very small. Energy received from space drives countless parts of the huge "heat engine" that is the Earth. And after use it returns to space.
It would seem that one can draw a conclusion: the sun's rays, passing through the atmosphere, heat it, and the rest of their heat is given to the ocean and land. But this is wrong. Of all the energy that the atmosphere has, only 20 percent gets it directly from heating by the sun's rays. Most of the rest of the energy is added to the atmosphere by the ocean. It, like a huge battery, stores it during the day, in hot summers, and gives it away at night, softening cold winters not only in coastal regions, but also in the depths of continents.
How does the ocean regulate the thermal balance of the planet? From the laws of physics, you know that in order to evaporate 1 gram of sea water, you need to spend 600 calories of heat. Water vapor condenses and collects in clouds. Winds drive clouds into high-latitude regions, where they rain down. The same physicists have calculated that when steam condenses and 1 gram of moisture falls out in the form of rain, about 540 calories of heat are released. Well, compare ... It turns out that the lion's share of the energy stored in the tropics is transferred through the atmosphere to the poles using only evaporation. After all, an average layer of water more than a meter thick evaporates from the surface of the World Ocean per year. Those who love math can calculate the total calories of heat transferred themselves. But there are also currents ...
To clearly visualize the interaction of the ocean with the atmosphere, scientists - oceanographers and meteorologists - must collect a lot of data. But it should be borne in mind that the ocean lives, moves and all its parameters are constantly changing. And there is nothing to say about the mobility of the atmosphere.
In the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Academician G.I. Marchuk, a method of mathematical models for the circulation of the atmosphere and ocean was developed. What is a "mathematical model"? In principle, this is a system of equations that describe certain interrelated processes in complex systems. For oceanologists, such a system is the ocean, for meteorologists - the Earth's atmosphere, the air ocean. These equations are solved using electronic computers.
Mathematical models are an extremely successful invention of the human mind. With their help, analogs of a wide variety of conditions can be created on paper. Let us suppose that people conceived to block the sea straits with dams. And along them are ocean currents. How will this event turn out for the whole Earth? And mathematical models can answer this question. For mathematicians, there are problems of local importance, and there are also global ones. For example, a relatively recent problem has arisen. The developing industry every year increases the amount of carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere. It would seem that there is nothing special: carbon dioxide is a transparent substance, it does not delay the sun's rays; in addition, it serves to nourish plants ... But it turns out that carbon dioxide has an insidious property: it lets through light rays, but stops heat rays. It turns out that solar radiation to the surface of the Earth passes unhindered, and the heat from the heated water and land does not go back into space. Like the glass of a greenhouse, carbon dioxide covers our planet. This means that the temperature at the surface is also increasing.
You might be thinking, “So what's wrong with that? Let there be more warmth, there will be in Moscow, in Leningrad, or maybe palm trees will grow in Murmansk ... ”In fact, warming will turn into innumerable troubles for us. Ice and eternal snow will begin to melt. Additional water will rush into the world's oceans, raise its level, and flood coastal cities. If the polar ice caps melt, the level of the World Ocean will rise by about 60 meters!
But is such a global catastrophe possible? To accurately answer this question, you need to be very careful to draw up mathematical models. To take into account in them not only the current achievements of science, but also to program forecasts of the future. So far, we can only say that the heat balance of our planet is not very stable. Traces of past eras show that the Earth's climate in the past experienced very significant fluctuations. During the existence of man, there were several such fluctuations. Scientists call them the cycles of glaciation. During each such cycle, the Earth passed from the state of interglacial to the state of glaciation and vice versa. Unfortunately, the glacial phases each time lasted much longer than the interglacials.
During periods of glaciation, mountain glaciers, sea \u200b\u200bice and the ice sheets grew significantly in size. Water froze out of the ocean, and its level dropped. For example, during the last great glaciation, the maximum of which was only eighteen thousand years ago, the level of the World Ocean dropped by more than 100 meters, exposing most of the shelf.
But not only great ice ages threaten the Earth. They are still quite rare. But even during interglacial periods, there are so-called small ice ages on our planet. So, having collected a lot of ship observations and carefully selecting from the old chronicles and chronicles all references to the weather of past years, scientists have established that from about 1450 to 1850 winters on Earth were much more severe than in our time. Summers were shorter and less hot, and the mountain glaciers descended well below their current boundaries. The sailors noted that the ice edge in the Atlantic ran much further south.
Why? What is the reason for such a cataclysm? Science cannot yet answer this question. Imagine how much work remains to be done in this area!
How many discoveries await future oceanographers and meteorologists! The prospects for them are truly wonderful.
Where is "tai fyn" - "big wind" born and where is "hurakan" - "heart of the sky" and "heart of the earth"
Of particular interest to all people is the question of how the changing conditions in the ocean affect the occurrence of terrible tropical cyclones, which are called hurricanes in the Atlantic and typhoons in the Indian and Pacific oceans.
Today, thanks to the space service of meteorological satellites and direct observations of astronauts, the regions where tropical cyclones originate are well known. There are not very many of them: in the Atlantic it is mainly the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico; in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, autumn typhoons originate in the southern and southwestern regions.
In addition, the Philippine Islands and the South China Sea are hotbeds. But typhoons that hit the east coast of Asia and India originate all year round in the western part The Pacific and in the northern regions of the Indian.
A tropical cyclone is a system of very strong winds that blow and whirl around a calm, low pressure center called the "cyclone eye." It is interesting that in the Northern Hemisphere, the wind revolves around the "cyclone eye" always counterclockwise, and in the Southern Hemisphere - along its course. A cyclone can cover an area of \u200b\u200bup to 1000 square kilometers, and its windless "eye" will have a diameter of only some 20-40 kilometers. The wind on the periphery of the cyclone can pick up speed up to 300 kilometers per hour.
Tropical cyclones cause tremendous damage both at sea and on land in coastal areas. They generate giant waves and sink ships. Water rushes into the flat coastline, destroys shallows, causes terrible floods and destroys people's homes.
In September 1900 in North America, in the state of Texas, during the hurricane, about 6 thousand people died. In September 1928, a tropical cyclone that swept over Florida claimed about 2,000 lives. And ten years later, a similar hurricane killed 600 New England residents. The listing of the sad consequences could be considerably continued. But you have probably already noticed that the closer to our days, the less the number of victims. This is because forecasters have already learned to warn of a formidable phenomenon at least one day in advance.
Hurricanes lose their strength when they move over land or water with a colder surface than where they were born. This means that it is the evaporation of warm water that feeds them with energy. And I must say, it feeds well. The total energy of a tropical cyclone is approximately equal to the energy of a simultaneous explosion of hundreds of 20 megaton bombs! It is comparable to the entire amount of electricity generated by the power plants of our country over a five-year period.
Traditionally, tropical cyclones are given female names. Previously, they were called by the names of those saints, on the day of their commemoration. In addition, they were also assigned a number. It turned out to be quite cumbersome. During the Second World War, when information about the approaching storm had to be transmitted by radio, preferably as quickly as possible, letters of the Latin alphabet began to be assigned to tropical cyclones. And to convey the letter without error, radio operators used a suitable female name starting with this letter. And so the tradition was born. However, since 1979, the US Weather Service has added male names to the list of cyclones.
"Huracan" in the language of the Indians of Guatemala means "one-legged". So they called the fast, like the wind, the creator and ruler of the world, the lord of thunderstorms, winds and hurricanes. The most common epithets for this terrible deity were "heart of heaven" and "heart of earth."
But the word "typhoon" comes from the Chinese words "tai fyn" - "big wind". And you can judge how true this is.