Module V: The Oceans, Climate and Culture

Module V: The Oceans, Climate and Culture

Explain:

I believe growing up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan near the Great Lakes gave me a warped perspective on how enormous the oceans are. While walking the beach of Lake Michigan or Lake Superior all a person can see is water – much like the ocean. However, the oceans absolutely dwarf these fresh water lakes! Eric Ellefson does a great job of explaining just how much bigger the oceans are than the lakes we grew up around in the mid-west.

The part of this module that seemed simply amazing to me was learning about the ocean currents, the Gulf Stream and thermohaline circulation. This process is simply phenomenal! The warm ocean currents warm the land that they pass by and cool others. They create climate! It’s no small potatoes that that a change in these currents would cause dramatic changes to the climates that they drive.

Whether talking about the Holocene climatic optimum driven by a change in current or the subsequent “little ice age” following that in the Northern Atlantic, ocean currents are definitely a big player on the global climate stage. While looking for more information about currents driving climate I found the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.  Reading a few articles here has helped me understand a few things about the Great Ocean Conveyor. I found an article entitled “Ocean Conveyor's 'Pump' Switches Back On” on the WHO site that was very interesting. It talks about thermohaline circulation being interrupted and then starting again. It’s short and really informative! 

Check out this phenomenon:  “The Greenland Tip Jet” that drives the “Pump”!

The Greenland tip jet is a sporadic, low-level atmospheric jet stream characterized by fierce winds on the lee side of Cape Farewell on the southern tip of Greenland. As storms pass through from the southwest, high-level winds descend the glacial slopes on the eastern side of Greenland, accelerating as they drop down over the ocean. In the process, they draw cold air into a relatively small area over the southern Irminger Sea. This phenomenon appears to play a critical role in chilling North Atlantic waters so that they sink to great depths and drive part of the global ocean circulation and climate system. Using NOAA's QuikSCAT satellite, MIT/WHOI Joint Program graduate student Kjetil Våge compiled this image of a tip jet on Dec. 5, 2002. Color indicates wind speeds in meters per second; arrows indicate wind direction. (Courtesy of Kjetil Våge, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) 

Extend:

Going through this course I didn’t think that I was going to be able to use much of it in my US History class…and then ... bam! It doesn’t get any more American History then Benjamin Franklin folks!! This guy was a celebrity throughout Europe during the Revolution and now I learn that he also discovered and named the Gulf Stream!! SWEET!!! What an important piece of the natural world to take advantage of while sailing across the Atlantic. To be able to guarantee a much shorter trip across due to knowledge of this current would have been an extreme advantage. 

A great way to illustrate this is to show a simple representation of what an ocean current is and does with  a small clip from the Disney and Pixar film “Finding Nemo”.  In the movie Marlin and Dory have to ride the East Australia Current (EAC) to Sydney to find Nemo. The turtles swimming in the EAC do a good job of explaining what ocean currents are and how they work! Check it out here!

More on the EAC.

Evaluate:

There are a lot of useful resources in this mod! Specific heat and albedo are perfect things to discuss when talking about how extreme high temperature affected troops in the Revolutionary War.  (Battle of Monmouth) Along with these things, I will definitely be including Franklin’s discovery of the Gulf Stream into my biographical lesson about him!

This module as also informed how I view the world around me here on the Kenai Peninsula. I have seen sand lances while digging clams ad always wondered what they were! They are an important part of the food web! It’s amazing that the AK Natives can use the lunar calendar so well to predict berry and mushroom harvests as well as fish runs. I would like to learn these skills! 

Collegial Comments:

I commented on Lila’s blog and thanked her for informing me about the Exxon spill still had a felt impact on salmon runs here on the Kenai.

Next, I commented on Eric’s blog and pointed out that it was interesting that even though one might throw something away, it still might end up in the ocean as trash.

Finally, I commented on Dan’s blog because I was amazed at the effectiveness of a simple demonstration that he uses with his students to explain what causes the changing seasons.