"Oceanographer" is less one job than a family of them. Several thousand marine scientists work in the United States on problems as different as climate change, declining fisheries, eroding coastlines, new drugs from the sea and new technology for exploring it. Just as medicine has its specialties, oceanography has its disciplines.
Oceanographers at work. Credit: NOAA.
The four main disciplines
| Discipline | What it studies | How |
|---|---|---|
| Biological oceanography and marine biology | the plants and animals of the sea: how many there are, how they develop, relate to one another, adapt to their surroundings and interact with them | field observations, computer models, laboratory and field experiments |
| Chemical oceanography and marine chemistry | what seawater is made of, its processes and cycles, and how it reacts chemically with the air and the seafloor | analyzing seawater, studying pollutants and chemical effects on marine life; tracing how currents move water, how the ocean affects climate, and finding useful resources such as natural medicines |
| Geological oceanography and marine geology | the ocean floor and the processes that shape its mountains, canyons and valleys | sampling that reveals millions of years of seafloor spreading, plate tectonics, and past ocean circulation and climates; volcanic and hydrothermal processes, the mantle and the making of crust |
| Physical oceanography | the ocean's physical conditions and processes: waves, currents, eddies, gyres and tides; sand moving on and off beaches; coastal erosion; the meeting of ocean and atmosphere | examining deep currents, how the ocean shapes weather and climate, how light and sound travel through water, and the ocean's edges at the seafloor and coast |
Why every oceanographer needs all four
The disciplines are intertwined. A question about fish can turn on chemistry; a question about climate can turn on currents and the seafloor. So every oceanographer needs a solid grasp of biology, chemistry, geology and physics to understand the processes of the world ocean — and to unravel its mysteries.
Sources
Based on "What does an oceanographer do?" from NOAA's National Ocean Service, a work of the United States government in the public domain.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from oceanservice.noaa.gov
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