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The statistics of the ocean says 'vast' using anyone's ruler. The mean depth of the ocean is 3800 meters, compared with the mean elevation of the continents of 840 meters. The mass of the ocean's water is 2x 1021 kg, about 370 times the mass of the earth's atmosphere. An estimated 80% of all life on earth is found under the ocean surface and the oceans contain 99% of the living space on earth. Oceans contain 97% of the water on Earth. Oceans host 70% of all volcanic activity on Earth. The Mid-Ocean Ridge is the longest mountain range at 50,000 miles! The deepest point on earth is the Challenger Deep in the western Pacific Ocean at over 11,000 meters. The largest organism that ever existed (and still does) is the Blue Whale, weighing 100 tons and has a heart the size of a small automobile. The smallest are phytoplankton and bacteria, estimated in millions of types of species. Despite its vastness, humans have still managed to damage it, even on macroscopic levels. Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere transfers into the ocean, making it more acidic. Increasing glacier melting changes the salinity (and thus density) of the oceans affect the thermohaline cycle of the oceans. Melting of the polar ice caps and glaciers are causing the oceans to rise two millimeters per year, twice the natural rate. This could devastate with low mean elevation and cause salt water to inundate aquifers. Factory trawlers scrape the ocean clean of fish and bycatch. As the target fish become less abundant, the focus shifts to smaller and less desirable fish. Eventually, fishing areas collapse, such as George's Bank, and they take a long time to restock, especially if the fish take years to mature. Garbage is openly dumped off shore, even toxic materials. Runoff from land causes all sort of problems off the coast. Toxic algae blooms are the result of agricultural nutrients collecting near shore, accelerating algae growth, which in turn uses up all the oxygen, which kills all the animals there. Artificial coastal features accelerate erosion and in the long run, do not protect the structures they were designed for. The global affects would surprise just about any scientist thirty years ago. The oceans are changing. With historical satellite data collected over the past 30 or more years, combined with ice cores dating back hundreds of millennia, we can see how things should change, compare to how they are changing.
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