Ocean Ocean An ocean () is a body of saline water that composes much of a planet's hydrosphere. On Earth, an ocean is one of the major conventional divisions of the World Ocean. These are, in descending order by area, the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern (Antarctic), and Arctic Oceans. The word "ocean" is often used interchangeably with "sea" in American English. Strictly speaking, a "sea" is a body of saline water (generally a division of the world ocean) partly or fully enclosed by land, though "the sea" refers also to the oceans. Saline water covers approximately and is customarily divided into
Ocean color oceans in the global carbon cycle. Ocean colour data is a vital resource for a wide variety of operational forecasting and oceanographic research, earth sciences, and related applications, as well as in many of the Societal Benefit Areas identified by the Group on Earth Observations. A few examples of some of the ways that ocean colour data and related data types have been used include. Ocean color The "color" of the ocean is determined by the interactions of incident light with substances or particles present in the water. White light from the sun is made up of a combination of