Climate & Weather
The ocean plays a central role in global climate and regional weather patterns.
Explore how the ocean regulates climate by absorbing carbon, the ways a warming ocean impacts the intensity of storms and the height of the sea, and how scientists study the ocean's climate history.
How the Ocean Works
Understanding how the ocean works is foundational to understanding life on this planet and to the discipline of oceanography.
Get to know the big systems of the ocean: its cycles, circulation, zones, and connection to the atmosphere. Learn about ocean chemistry, life and landscapes on the seafloor, plate movements, shorelines, and icy regions.
Ocean & Human Lives
The oceans are critical to human flourishing: they feed and sustain billions of people, and make life as we know it possible
Study the entwined life of humanity and the sea—the impacts of natural disasters, pollution, and harmful algal blooms. Learn how scientists locate shipwrecks, lost planes, and other human artifacts to unearth a historical record and study how ocean life colonizes these materials.
Ocean Life
Every drop of ocean water holds living things.
Across Earth’s history, the ocean has nurtured nearly every form of life that has ever existed. Immerse yourself in the diverse ecosystems around coral reefs, the surprising homes of marine microbes, the migrations of giant marine mammals, and the clues embedded in Environmental DNA.
Ocean Tech
Studying the ocean is as much a technological challenge as it is a scientific one.
Get to know the underwater vehicles, sensors, imaging, communications systems, and modeling tools scientists use to illuminate this harsh environment.
Sustainable Ocean
The global ocean provides food, minerals, and other valuable resources.
Read up on the science and technological advances that can inform management of the ocean so that fisheries remain stable, ecosystems that support the food web are protected, new ocean-based energy sources do not harm marine life, and humans can continue to live in harmony with the ocean for generations to come.
