There are 63 seas on the globe. They cannot include the Caspian and Aral (these are huge, but still lakes - the "descendants" of the ancient Tethys ocean), as well as the Galilee and the Dead (the addition "sea" is historical here). What is the sea like? This question was answered by the classifications of scientists A. M. Muromtsev, Yu. M. Shokalsky, A. V. Everling, Kryummel, N. N. Zubov. In the article, we will present the most widespread categories of seas.
What is the sea like: classification by oceans
The most famous classification is the one that distributes the seas according to belonging to the basin of a particular ocean. Based on it, 5 varieties of these reservoirs can be distinguished:
- Pacific - 25 seas, including the Bering, Yellow, Japanese, Philippine, Tasmanovo, Fiji, Okhotsk, East China and others.
- Atlantic - 16 seas, including the B altic, Azov, Caribbean, North, Mediterranean, Aegean, Black, etc.
- Indian Ocean - 11 seas, including the Arabian, Red, Timor and others.
- Arctic - 11 seas, including the Barents, East Siberian, Pechora, Laptev, Kara, Chukchi and others.
- South Ocean - the seas of Antarctica: Amundsen, Bellingshausen, Commonwe alth,Cosmonauts and others.
What are the seas: names by isolation from the ocean
There are four big groups in this category:
- Interisland - located in a dense ring of islands that interfere with active water exchange with the ocean: Sulawesi, Javanese, etc.
- Intercontinental (Mediterranean) - surrounded by land so that only a few straits communicate with the ocean: Red, Mediterranean, Caribbean, etc.
- Marginal - freely communicating with the expanse of the ocean, the currents in them are also formed due to its winds. The ocean also influences the nature of their bottom sediments, microclimate, flora and fauna: Japanese, South China, Bering, Okhotsk, etc.
- Internal - completely closed from contact with the ocean by land. Within themselves, they are divided into inland (Russian Black, Yellow) and intercontinental (Red, Mediterranean), as well as isolated - not in contact with other similar water bodies (Aral or Dead), semi-enclosed (for example, Azov, B altic).
Distribution of seas by degree of salinity
These categories more answer the question "What is the water in the sea?". There are two answers here:
- Slightly saline seas - the percentage of s alt is lower than in the waters of the ocean. For example, the Black Sea belongs here.
- Highly saline seas - the percentage of salinity of their waters is higher than that of oceans. As a good example - the Red Sea.
There are no seas with fresh water, as can be seen from the classification.
Other sea classifications
What else is the sea like? According to the temperature of the waters, sea water bodies are divided into tropical, temperate and polar - northern and southern.
According to the sharpness of the indentation of the coastline, the sea can be divided into highly indented and slightly indented. But, for example, the Sargasso Sea does not have such a line at all.
After asking ourselves: "What is the sea like?", each of us will make our own classification: calm, formidable, affectionate, raging, charming, warm, icy, distant or close. Scientific categories, on the other hand, are more suitable for professional studies of these reservoirs.
