335 articles
Mediterranean Outflow Water
Mediterranean Outflow Water is the warm, highly saline water mass formed where dense Mediterranean water exits Gibraltar, mixes in the Gulf of Cádiz, and spreads into the North Atlantic.
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea, also known as the Med, is a semi-enclosed sea between Europe, Africa, and Asia, connected to the Atlantic through the Strait of Gibraltar.
Megatsunami
A megatsunami, also known as an iminami, is an unusually large tsunami generated by giant landslides, volcanic flank collapses, or asteroid impacts instead of ordinary earthquakes, with run-ups exceeding 100 m.
Melt pond
A melt pond is a pool of meltwater that collects on the surface of sea ice, most commonly on Arctic sea ice during summer, where ponds lower albedo and speed melting.
Mesoscale eddy
A mesoscale eddy is a rotating body of ocean water, typically 10 to 100 km across, that drifts for weeks to over a year carrying heat and salt.
Meteotsunami
A meteotsunami is a tsunami-like series of ocean waves generated by fast-moving atmospheric pressure disturbances rather than earthquakes or landslides, known regionally as the rissaga in the Balearic Islands.
Microbial carbon pump
The microbial carbon pump (MCP) is an ocean carbon sequestration mechanism, proposed in 2010, in which marine microorganisms transform labile dissolved organic carbon into recalcitrant forms persisting for millennia.
Microbial food web
The microbial food web is the portion of aquatic food webs made up of bacteria, archaea, protists, and viruses that recycle nutrients and dissolved organic matter.
Mild-slope equation
The mild-slope equation, derived by J. C. W. Berkhoff in 1972, is an elliptic partial differential equation describing water waves over slowly varying seabeds, widely used in coastal engineering.
Mixed layer
The mixed layer, also called the isothermal layer, is the turbulent upper ocean where wind and cooling make temperature, salinity, and density nearly uniform, typically tens of meters deep.
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) is a non-profit oceanographic research center in Moss Landing, California, founded by David Packard in 1987 to advance marine science and technology.
Mooring (oceanography)
An oceanographic mooring is a anchored line with a surface or subsurface buoy and attached instruments that measure ocean conditions at one fixed station continuously, for months to years.
Morphodynamics
Morphodynamics is the study of the mutual adjustment of topography and fluid dynamics involving sediment transport, a feedback loop that shapes shores, estuaries, riverbeds, and dunes.
MOSAiC expedition
MOSAiC was an international Arctic expedition in which the German icebreaker Polarstern drifted frozen in sea ice from 2019 to 2020, studying the Arctic climate.
Moskstraumen
Moskstraumen, also called Moskenesstraumen, is a strong tidal current and maelstrom in the Lofoten archipelago of Nordland, Norway, running between Lofotodden and the island Mosken; it inspired Poe's "A Descent into the Maelström".
Multi-year ice
Multi-year ice (MYI) is sea ice that has survived at least one summer melt season, making it the oldest and thickest sea ice at 4 to 5 meters.
National Institute of Oceanography, India
The National Institute of Oceanography, also known as the Indian National Institute of Oceanography, is an autonomous research institute of CSIR in Goa, India, established in 1966.
National Oceanography Centre
The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) is the United Kingdom's lead research institution for marine science, based in Southampton and Liverpool and running the research ships Discovery and James Cook.
National traditions in oceanography
National traditions in oceanography are the characteristic ways countries organize the study of the sea through institutions, expeditions, funding, and training, compared across the United States, the Soviet Union, India, and France.
Neap tide
A neap tide is a moderate tide occurring twice each lunar month, at the Moon's first and third quarters, when the Sun and Moon are at right angles to each other.
Neuston
Neuston is the community of organisms living at, on, or immediately below the air-water interface of oceans, lakes, and ponds, a term introduced by Einar Naumann in 1917.
New production
New production is ocean primary production fueled by nitrogen from outside the sunlit surface layer, chiefly nitrate, and is the fraction exported to the deep ocean.
NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps
The NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps (NOAA Corps) is one of the eight US uniformed services, whose roughly 360 officers operate NOAA's research ships and hurricane hunter aircraft.
NOAAS Ronald H. Brown
NOAAS Ronald H. Brown, commissioned in 1997, is a global-class oceanographic and atmospheric research ship, the largest in the NOAA fleet, homeported in Charleston, South Carolina.
North Atlantic Current
The North Atlantic Current, also called the North Atlantic Drift, is a warm ocean current that continues the Gulf Stream northeastward from the Grand Banks toward the British Isles.
North Atlantic Deep Water
North Atlantic Deep Water is a cold, salty water mass formed in the subpolar North Atlantic and Nordic Seas that flows southward and ventilates the deep ocean.
North Atlantic garbage patch
The North Atlantic garbage patch, or Atlantic Garbage Patch, is a zone of floating plastic debris, mostly microplastics, in the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre near Bermuda.
North Pacific Intermediate Water
North Pacific Intermediate Water (NPIW) is the low-salinity water mass of the North Pacific, a salinity minimum at depths of roughly 300–800 m, sourced mainly from the Sea of Okhotsk.
Ocean circulation
Ocean circulation: the wind-driven surface and density-driven deep movement of seawater, including the AMOC, which transports heat, carbon, and nutrients globally and regulates climate; the ocean absorbs over a quarter of carbon emissions and about 93% of excess heat.
Ocean color
Ocean color is the spectral distribution of visible light leaving the sea surface, measured from satellites to track chlorophyll a, phytoplankton biomass, and the ocean's role in the carbon cycle.