Invitation to oceanography / Введение в океанографию

Before delving into the science of oceanography, we should understand exactly what the word means. The first part of the term is coined from the Greek word okeanos, or Oceanus, the name of the Titan son of the gods Uranus and Gaea, who was father of the ocean nymphs (the Oceanids). Eventually oceanus was applied to the sea beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the North Atlantic Ocean. The second part of the term comes from the Greek word graphia, which refers to the act of recording and describing. In fact, the word oceanography is inadequate to describe the science of the seas, because scientists do much more than merely record and describe the ocean’s physical, chemical, geological, and biological characteristics. Oceanographers investigate, interpret, and model all aspects of ocean processes, using the most modern and sophisticated techniques of scientific and mathematical enquiry. The term oceanology (the suffix ology meaning “the science of”) is etymologically more accurate. The distinction between oceanography and oceanology is similar to that made between geography (the physical description of the world and its biota) and geology (the scientific study of the Earth and its processes). The word oceanology has not, however, displaced oceanography, because the latter term is solidly entrenched in the minds of the laypeople as well as the Western practitioners of the science. Hence, this book will follow convention, using the more familiar term to denote the scientific study of the oceans <...>