Earth: The Biography

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Oceans

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Ocean representing National Geographic Channel show Earth: The Biography Oceans episode

OCEANS

Earth’s oceans help make our planet different from every other planet in the solar system. What else do we know about water, the most essential ingredient for life?

The oceans cover 71 percent of the Earth's surface and contain 97 percent of its water. That is why the Earth is often referred to as the “blue planet.”

An estimated 80 percent of all life on Earth is found under the oceans’ surface, and the oceans contain 99 percent of the living space on the planet. Less than 10 percent of that space has been explored by humans.

At the deepest point in the ocean, the pressure is more than 8 tons per square inch, or the equivalent of one person trying to support 50 jumbo jets.

The average depth of the ocean is 12,451 feet.

Gravity from the moon creates ocean tides on Earth that go out twice a day, every day of the year, in what are commonly known as high tide and low tide.

The complex network of the oceans’ currents transfers energy around the planet and acts as an engine that drives the Earth’s climate.

El Niño, a periodic shift of warm waters from the western to the eastern Pacific Ocean, has dramatic effects on climate worldwide. In 1982-83, the most severe El Niño of the century created droughts, crop failures, fires, torrential rains, floods and landslides.

The Pacific Ocean, the world's largest body of water, occupies a third of the Earth's surface.

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