The Marine Environment

The fact that open ocean covers two-thirds of the surface of our planet dramati- cally illustrates the importance of the marine environment to life on Earth. But the importance of the oceans goes far beyond their sheer size for it is the oceans that largely determine our climate for the weather around the world is heavily influenced by what happens in our seas. ‘Weather patterns are primarily controlled by ocean currents which are influenced by surface winds, temperature, salinity, the Earth’s rotation and ocean tides....Ocean currents bring warm water and rain from the equator to the poles and cold water from the poles towards the equator’ (www.greentumble.com, 2016). Every schoolchild knows that the sun evaporates water from the sea which then become clouds that then produces almost all of the rain and snow which falls on every land mass in the world. The oceans also absorb heat from the sun and from human activities; this heat is then carried to the land in those places where the prevailing winds blow from the sea to the land. At the same time, the oceans play a vital role in the carbon cycle by absorbing carbon dioxide that is in the air.