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Illustration depicting air-sea daily rhythm.

Illustration depicting air-sea daily rhythm.
Illustration depicting air-sea daily rhythm.
Illustration depicting air-sea daily rhythm.
Illustration depicting air-sea daily rhythm.
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289645
Taylor, Eric S.
Illustration depicting air-sea daily rhythm.
Illustration
01/12/2016
Bogdanoff_Illustration_8.jpg
Image Of the Day caption:
At the ocean surface, heat and energy is exchanged between the air above and the water below. Every day, the sun rises and warms a thin layer of surface water. At night, without heat from the sun, the warm surface water cools down, becomes heavier, sinks, and mixes deeper into the ocean creating a blank slate on the ocean surface for the process to start all over again. Alec Bogdanoff, a graduate student in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program, focused his research on subtle daily processes at this critical boundary that can change air-sea interactions over vast areas and longer periods.
Caption from Oceanus magazine, Vol. 51, No. 2, pg. 108:
Daily Rhythm.
Every day the sun rises and warms the surface waters in the ocean. At night, this thin layer of warm water disappears, because the atmosphere is generally cooler than the ocean. Without heat from the sun, surface waters begin cooling. The cooler water is heavier, and it sinks and mixes deeper into the ocean, creating a very well-mixed layer near the surface a clean slate for the next day.
Illustration by Eric S. Taylor, WHOI Creative
© Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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