Talk:World Ocean

Proposed oceans project
Anyone interested in joining a project to deal with the oceans is free to indicate their support at WikiProject Council/Proposals. John Carter (talk) 22:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Area
How about adding the area (square kilometers and square miles) of the ocean to the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.225.38.209 (talk) 05:48, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

CRK Ocean
Someone added a link to this under //See also. What is this? Matttoothman (talk) 19:12, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Emphasis on Southern Ocean
The article places a lot of emphasis the Southern Ocean as the center of the world ocean with all the other oceans being positioned relative to it. From one perspective it works to give an organising principle for the connections between the oceans, but from another perspective, since the Southern Ocean is not universally recognised as its own ocean, this could cause confusion. I can make a revision that presents them more uniformly, but I wanted to bring it up here first. — Zujine |talk 17:27, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

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World Ocean?
Do reliable sources actually call it World Ocean? Certainly, world oceans is commonly used, and "world ocean" as an adjective (e.g. "world ocean currents"), but I'm not convinced that the proper noun "World Ocean" is the common name. Pburka (talk) 15:51, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

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Why so skimpily?
?87.249.198.71 (talk) 11:06, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Why does this article deserve to stand alone?
This article begins by noting that the world ocean is known colloquially as the sea. The article for the sea notes that it is alternately referred to as the world ocean. Is there something I'm missing here, or is this an obvious candidate for a merge? - Sdkb (talk) 05:11, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree. It should be merged. LittleJerry (talk) 03:26, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Please do not start two merge discussions for the same proposal at different places. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 20:04, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
 * This was me putting out a feeler two weeks ago, just to make sure I wasn't missing something obvious. The feedback I got led to the proposal at Talk:Sea, and I agree that that is the proper place for discussion from here forward. - Sdkb (talk) 22:11, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
 * See discussion at Talk:Sea, the more established article. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 20:07, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Sea which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 18:46, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Ocean
Hi there I understand that there has been considerable discussion about merging sea and world ocean. But I want to propose that the issue lies not with the sea article, but rather with the ocean article.

Because the ocean article discusses what this article tries to differentiate itself with from the sea, that is as the system of oceans. I understand imho the sea as the definition from a coastal point of view, and ocean is the proper geography of it, world ocean being the system of that geography, as defined in this article.

So I propose to move most of the ocean article here or merge this article into ocean. Though I prefer keeping all three articles (ocen, sea and world ocean), since they seem to be not the same for many, creating a sort of hyrarchy by making this article about the system of oceans and the sea as the general article. Which makes me a supporter of moving large parts of the ocean article here, since it deals with the oceanographic elements of the world ocean, and leave the general description of the world ocean to the sea article. Nsae Comp (talk) 10:28, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Removed further reading section
I have removed the further reading section as this can become a completely arbitrary list over time. If anyone wants to salvage any of these I suggest they are used for inline citations instead: ++++++++++
 * Chekin, L. 2002. "The world ocean in medieval cartography". Moscow: S. I. Vavilov Institute of the History of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences; thesis for Museum of the World Ocean congress.
 * "Ocean". The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. 2003. New York: Columbia University Press; also,
 * Danabasoglu, Gokhan ; McWilliams, James C.; & Gent, Peter R. 1994.  "The role of mesoscale tracer transports in the global ocean circulation". Science: vol. 264. (no. 5162), pp. 1123–1126.
 * Levitus, Sydney; Antonov, John I.; Boyer, Timothy P.; and Stephens, Cathy. 2000. "Warming of the world ocean": abstract, article. Science: vol. 287. (no. 5461), pp. 2225–2229.
 * Spilhaus, Athelstan F. 1942. "Maps of the whole world ocean." Geographical Review: vol. 32 (no. 3), pp. 431–5.
 * UN Atlas of the Oceans:
 * "Distribution of land and water on the planet", "Origins of the oceans and continents" ++++++++++ EMsmile (talk) 09:43, 1 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I dont find the list a problem or disturbing in the article. Particularly the UN Atlas and dictionary entry about Ocean, maybe also the medieval maps. The others are too random. Nsae Comp (talk) 22:14, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Merge into ocean
I have tidied up the section on anthropogenic influences (it was just a long list of wikilinks which I replaced with one wikilink to the relevant Wikipedia article). Then there was the table with the "oceanic divisions" which was identical in ocean so I replaced it with a link. The only section remaining now is the one called "organization". This could also be merged into ocean, couldn't it? What is the point in having this short article? Was there a plan to build it up over time? If so, with which content? And couldn't that content rather go into ocean?EMsmile (talk) 09:49, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify my proposal: I am proposing to merge World ocean into ocean, and to have a redirect from "world ocean" to "ocean". Please provide comments below, for or against, with reasoning. EMsmile (talk) 14:48, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
 * (a related discussion took place here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ocean#Improvements_to_headings_and_overlap_with_two_other_articles) EMsmile (talk) 14:51, 2 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose this proposal. Instead most (not all) of the content that User:EMsmile has just removed, without significant discussion, should be replaced and the article renamed List of oceans, which currently redirects to a section in Ocean. I think it is useful to have the basic geographical facts in a shortish dedicated article. World ocean can then redirect to ocean.  This is part of an effort to also merge sea and ocean, see Talk:Ocean, which badly needs more comments.   Johnbod (talk) 14:59, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Could you please clarify exactly which of the removed content you want to bring back and why? I assume you mean this change, right? I had explained my reasoning in the edit summary as follows: "I really don't see the point in having the same table in two articles. Exactly the same table is already in ocean. If we have it in two articles then it just creates extra work for maintenance." Also, you wrote "oppose" but what you then wrote is not really an opposition but actually an alternative suggestion. You are proposing to create a short article called "List of oceans". I don't mind if you want to do that. However, it looks to me like we already have two a similar article for that: Borders of the oceans. We also have List of seas which includes a list of oceans plus more. I don't mind if you want to have a "list of oceans" but I don't think it contradicts my proposal of doing away with a stand-alone article called "world ocean". EMsmile (talk) 02:56, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it make sense to move the tentative article List of oceans (as suggested by Johnbod) into the article List of seas since oceans are included in that list already? Thus, merge World Ocean with List of seas? Olle Terenius (UU) (talk) 13:36, 3 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment Hopefully this is helpful here and with the discussion re: sea, ocean, and world ocean. A "sea" is generally a smaller, partially enclosed saline waterbody (ref) while an "ocean" is much larger and is used to refer to the 5 to 3 oceans that make up the "World Ocean". In general, a "sea" is part of a larger "ocean" waterbody, unless completely enclosed by land such as the Caspian Sea. It seems like the article Sea is a bit out of scope and leans a bit too much on the colloquial/poetic use of "the sea" which does not align with the geographic of definition and the title of the article, "sea". The World Ocean refers to a specific, interconnected waterbody, which includes a collection of oceans / seas / gulfs / etc... and I think should have its own article. It is similar to the distinction between Lake and a specific waterbody that is a lake such as Lake Baikal. "World Ocean" could also be called "Global Ocean" and both of these terms are still used in the scientific literature to refer to the collective oceans on Earth (e.g. 1, 2, 3). Jayzlimno (talk) 13:32, 3 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Thats exactly my impression of the articles and I am glad someone brings in some references, because until now we have no really oceanographic competent opinions on the differentiation between the terms. Nsae Comp (talk) 00:24, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose: Since oppose/support is not necessarily about what a practicle compromise could look like, Ill add how I understand the articles. I think we need more professional oceanographic understanding. Judging from the above provided sources, among others, I understand World Ocean about/as the system of oceans, and Ocean about the more local system and phenomena, a general oceanic structure. I think that way all three (incl. sea) articles can work together, even keeping Sea (though with its understanding as sub-part of an ocean still sidelined) as the main and Ocean as well as World Ocean about the descriptions of the different scales of the system that the Sea stretches out. This approach would maybe best resemble the use of the three terms in oceanography, as far as I understand the literature. Nsae Comp (talk) 01:27, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment: I feel like some of you keep reiterating the different definitions of the three terms. Whilst that is interesting at an academic level it doesn't really help us to solve the conundrum for the three Wikipedia articles. I am not doubting that we can explain a definition of "world ocean" versus "ocean". But, Wikipedia is not a dictionary that is just meant to explain terms. It's an encyclopedia that is meant to explain concepts and connections. There is no point having a separate article about "world ocean" if the content of the article is basically 95% identical to the content of "ocean" (for your information, the content that is currently there under "oceanic division" exists exactly the same at ocean as well). For those people who are opposing a merger on the grounds that they are "different" please provide us with guidance of which content should ultimately be in the article on world ocean that is not in ocean? Let's talk specifics: The sections on geography, characteristics, human uses of the oceans, environmental issues which are currently all in "oceans" - Do you want to duplicate them to "world ocean"? If not, then what content do you want to see in "world ocean" instead, beyond the definition of the term, which is basically a one-liner? Keep in mind also that this article has been around for a long time (since 2006) but has never grown to more than "start" level. That has got to tell us something. Wouldn't it be sufficient to rather have a section on terminology within ocean which explains those definitions (i.e. this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean#Terminology) and then get on with it, with the information bundled in one article instead of spread over two? Another interesting statistic is the changing view rates over time: Ocean always much higher than world ocean, sea declining, ocean increasing, see here: https://pageviews.toolforge.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&range=all-time&pages=World_Ocean|Ocean|Sea EMsmile (talk) 02:42, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * The duplication in oceanic division is not needed in that extend, maybe more like an outline what the world ocean looks like as a put together body, e.g. which direction global currents take or where connections and pockets are. I think I stired that now by puting existing paras together into the just emptied section, but my intend was merely structural not content based. For me the division section is mostly obstructive for the article because as far as I understand it world ocean emphasizes the system not the parts of it, which is very well covered by ocean. About your question what exactly belongs where I would argue that ocean should be more about what the smaller body that any of the oceans are characterized, like inner-oceanic currents etc. . That said I think there are considerable parts in ocean that describe what world ocean is about. So yes in my understanding there could be some moving also from ocean to here. Duplication though is not necessary, maximum as excerpts, as proposed/introduced earlier. Nsae Comp (talk) 02:59, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Compromise suggestion: How about this: In the article on ocean within the section terminology we have a sub-heading called "World ocean". We include there the definition of it and a bit more about who coined the term and things like that. Then we place a redirect from "World ocean" to "Ocean#World_ocean". This means people who type into the search field "world ocean" will be guided directly to the definition of the term. EMsmile (talk) 02:49, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * For me that would mess up Ocean because at the moment that article is about any ocean, not all oceans as a whole, even if the article still mixes both understandings in its body, but not in its lead which establishes the article as well as discusses ocean generally. Nsae Comp (talk) 03:08, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * PS: as said in the Ocean discussion I only can see any merge working if all three articles are merged because in the proposed case world ocean as part of ocean would make ocean a duplicate of sea again, and not an article about a section of the sea. That said maybe the article world ocean can be called something like "the network/system of the oceans", but I prefer "world ocean" since it does that anyway and is more established. Nsae Comp (talk) 03:31, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I think most of the Ocean content is actually more appropriate for an article titled World Ocean. Sections 2.2 - 5.4 in Ocean describe characteristics of the collective oceans and isn't about a general ocean or any one particular ocean. Having said that, if Ocean is used more in the English language to refer to the collective oceans and is more viewed page on Wikipedia, then it's probably best to keep this information in Ocean and make it clear that most of the article refers to the collective oceans, and merge some of the remaining content from World Ocean into Ocean. I don't think it's necessary to add a subsection for 'World Ocean', but there is already a subsection call 'Global system' which is a bit lacking, so maybe this could be renamed to 'World Ocean' and/or expanded upon. The 'Total' in the table under 'Oceanic divisions' could be renamed to 'World Ocean' or put in parenthetical (e.g. Total (World Ocean)). Jayzlimno (talk) 12:20, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Maybe these two and three (incl. Sea) articles are a good place too use more frequent to share sections and the audience/editing? Nsae Comp (talk) 16:06, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Excerpts are pretty handy. Notice how I have used the excerpts quite a lot in the ocean article for the environmental issues section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean#Environmental_issues I think they can work well for overview articles so that one doesn't get tempted to repeat in different words what's in the sub-articles already. However, it relies on the leads of the sub-articles being good! And also, I have come to realise that some people really dislike excerpts, in particular when it comes to featured articles (sea is still a featured article at this point). The argument was that if the source article is changed then someone watching the featured article doesn't get a notification. Hence, bad content could creep into the featured article without anyone noticing it. - And I don't think that a table is a good thing to be excerpted because then you're going down the track of duplicating the same content unnecessarily in two articles. That's the reason why I have just removed the table with the oceanic divisions from the "world ocean" article. - And I think what you would like to see in the "world ocean" article is already in "ocean". As per WP:Commonname the word "ocean" is in my opinion the appropriate article title (otherwise I would have suggested to rename "ocean" to "world ocean"). The content about specific oceans can just be in the articles that deal with those specific oceans. Hence, "ocean" is the overarching term for all of the individual oceans together. Hence, there is no need for a separate article on "world ocean" that contains essentially nothing else other than a definition of "world ocean". EMsmile (talk) 00:31, 5 March 2021 (UTC)


 * So difficult these three articles :/ . But I think since Sea is at the moment mostly the overarching article, Ocean tries to be what Sea is but is through its lead rather about the geographic division than anything else. So I think World Ocean should be a sub-article as much as ocean (!), the former about the global sea current system and its bio-chemical exchanges and the latter about the oceanic division; everything more general to Sea, like just general description of things in the Sea. So Sea can link to these specific topics/sub-articles. Nsae Comp (talk) 03:07, 5 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I think things are changing. "Ocean" is becoming the more relevant term here than "sea". See for example UN Ocean Conference. Can you imagine the title "UN Sea Conference"? Wouldn't work. Or is it only at UN level that ocean is becoming the more relevant term? I think it's a global shift. Just like "climate change" has replaced "global warming" over the past decade or so. So from that perspective, I think "Ocean" should become the main article. "Sea" could be a sub-article, more focused on geography and history/folklore maybe. And there could be a separate article on "list of oceans" if you like (which is what Johnbod had also suggested above). Therefore that content about oceanic division would be in "List of oceans". Or put that into Borders of the oceans. - I am just against having mini-articles. An article that only includes a definition and the oceanic division for me is not worthwhile having. If it's a list-type article then fine. EMsmile (talk) 04:28, 5 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Support some type of merging I initially thought that sea would be an article about small seas, but I see now that it's an article about The sea, which means there are indeed three articles with a very similar scope. I'm okay with having sea be the top article, and ocean focus on the physical aspects. However, I think it might be better to make ocean the top article, and sea about coastal seas and inland seas. My radical proposal would be to rename sea into ocean (keeping its star!), and start writing an article about seas from scratch, deleting most of the information that is currently in ocean. A list of oceans article could be started as well, considering the fact that there are multiple notable divisions of the ocean iirc. It's weird that our article List of seas uses a different definition of sea than sea.


 * I like part of your suggestion, User:Femkemilene (I think you forgot to sign your above comment). The idea of renaming "sea" to "ocean" is an interesting one (probably all people with US-English are fine with it (including me), but people with UK-English not (?)). But I don't understand why you would want to delete the content that is currently at "ocean"? Surely there is good information there which could be merged into the old sea article / new ocean article? EMsmile (talk) 10:11, 10 March 2021 (UTC)


 * The US view and the European view is interesting. It is clear that in the US looking east or west takes one to the ocean, Atlantic or Pacific. In Europe wherever we look, it is to a sea; the North Sea, the Irish Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Aegean Sea, the Red sea etc.etc.. This does all suggest that land proximity is one key to understanding the differences, but may not help much in determining what to merge and what to keep. For what it is worth I support a merge of World Ocean into Ocean.  Velella  Velella Talk 15:21, 10 March 2021 (UTC)


 * In line with the above discussion, I have now created an article called List of oceans (well, actually it existed already but was a redirect; I have now redirected it to a sub-section within Boundaries of the oceans. For that purpose, I have moved the bullet point list with the information about the five oceans from world ocean to boundaries of the oceans. The remaining content at "world ocean" is now very small so I am really not sure if a stand-alone article has any merit. If it did, what other content should go there? I can't think of anything that wouldn't overlap with what's already at ocean or sea.EMsmile (talk) 03:25, 11 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Support This article is small enough and the oceans are connected enough. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:15, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Next steps?  What are the next steps from here? Can we get a merger discussion closure and how do we get that? We now have List of oceans which was requested above. I also have included content about the "world ocean" concept at ocean in the terminology section. So there is nothing in this article anymore that isn't included elsewhere. I think the way forward would be to complete this merger now. The redirect could go to Ocean.EMsmile (talk) 14:17, 14 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Well I guess it is to follow the recipe book at WP:Merging. I have had my wrist mildly slapped in the past when I have messed out a particularly eclectic piece of the ritual. Check that you have Bell, book, and candle at the ready.  Velella  Velella Talk 15:02, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
 * It looks rather like a no consensus at present. It might be best to wait until there is some sort of conclusion on the other articles in the group. Johnbod (talk) 16:59, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
 * A "consensus" doesn't mean that everyone will be perfectly happy but that the arguments have been exchanged and deliberated and in summary the best arguments have led to a conclusion (WP:CLOSE). As far as I can see there were two people so far who argued against a merger. This was you and Nsae Comp. In your reply, which was the first one after my proposal you said you wanted an article "List of oceans" which should contain basically what used to be at "world ocean". This article has now been created. It is part of the existing article Borders of the oceans. If you don't like that article, I invite you to improve it further. Regarding the objection of Nsae Comp, I have included what they wanted in "global ocean" into the article of "ocean" under Ocean and have asked several times which new, unique content would be planned to be added at "world ocean" - to which I got no reply. The article "world ocean" was created in 2006 (so 15 years ago) and has lingered as "start" quality ever since then, see here. Shouldn't that tell us something? To me it says that there is no unique content that needs to go into that article, apart from the definition of the term, which isn't already in ocean. Of course we can hang on to the status quo for another 15 years. Or we can be bold and finally do this merger which others have argued for in the past, too (see talk page archives). - I am thinking of waiting another week or so and then requesting a close, as per this closing procedure. @User:Velella normally I would do what you suggested but in this case I don't dare to... If someone else does, please go ahead. EMsmile (talk) 02:08, 15 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Support. The sea/ocean/world ocean/etc. debacle is a mess and has long been a mess. This merge won't fully put it to rest, but combining the two articles that do not seem to have a meaningful enough distinction to warrant separation will at least be a step forward. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 04:30, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

As Folklore
Many times now, I've seen mythology and folklore articles link to this page, apparently in the belief that this article is about the folkloric concept of a World Ocean (whatever that is), even though this article is entirely about the scientific(?) concept of a World Ocean and doesn't address mythology, folklore, or culture at all. Should a "World Ocean in Mythology and Folklore" section be added to this article? Is there some other article they should be linking to instead, and if not, should one be created? I don't know much about the folkloric World Ocean (I was kinda hoping to learn more about it from this article), so I'm not sure whether or not the two concepts are actually related. BrokenEye3 (talk) 21:22, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oceanus is probably the best destination, at least for European topics. Johnbod (talk) 22:39, 4 March 2021 (UTC)