Talk:Ocean

Please correct the following four sentences in the second paragraph of the first section

"Earth's global ocean is the largest confirmed surface ocean on all observable planets. Approximately 72% of the planet's surface (~3.6x108 km2) is covered by saline water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas, although some sources prove that the ocean only covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface.[6] In terms of the hydrosphere of the Earth, the ocean contains 97% of the Earth's water. Oceanographers have stated that out of 97%, only 5% of the ocean as a whole on Earth has been explored."

For example, if there is disagreement on whether 72% or 71% of the surface is covered, we should give the approximate coverage that is more widely accepted and then state the alternate view as an alternate view (assuming, of course, that there is sufficient controversy on this fact to even justify a comment that alters an approximation by 1%). Also, if the other source really "proves" that it is 71%, then there would be no need to state the 72% at all. For these reasons, the sentence could be substantially improved with a little rework.

There are similar improvements that we should consider for the other three sentences as well.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ismarkat (talk • contribs) 00:03, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Definition

Oceans exist elsewhere other than earth and contains liquid methane. So the definition should not claim oceans contain saline water, it should claim oceans contain liquid compound (and saline water, in the context of earth). --PlanetEditor (talk) 05:54, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

No extraterrestrial oceans have yet been discovered. No-one calls Titan's methan lakes (!) "oceans"; they are extremely tiny compared to the Earth's oceans. Earth has many non-ocean bodies that are much larger than them (Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, ...) --Roentgenium111 (talk) 21:06, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Volume of the World's oceans

This article gives the volume of the world's oceans as "1.3 billion cubic kilometres". The article on the Pacific gives its total volume as "2.8 billion cubic kilometres". What gives? Neither reference is terrible but the one for this article is a secondary source compiled by "students". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.8.37.201 (talk) 01:30, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I've fixed Pacific Ocean. The 2.8 billion was nowhere in the source. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:57, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Southern Ocean

I am quite puzzled by the definition of the Southern Ocean. If I understand the article about it correctly, its definition and boundaries are not universally agreed upon. It appears on some maps, but definitely not on all maps. Why, then, do quite a lot of Wikipedia articles refer to it as a fact? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 10:40, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Maybe because of this? "Despite this, the 4th edition definition has de facto usage by many organisations, scientists and nations - even by the IHO." Do you have any suggestions about how to change the wording of this article? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 10:54, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

To be honest, no, because I'm not a professional geographer. I'm just very uncomfortable about this "de facto" thing. The source at that article for the de facto part is an example, and though it's valid as an example, it's not a real proof that "many" organizations use it. I know that some maps include it and some don't. I don't have numbers. It leaves me confused, because I'd love Wikipedia to be consistent and stable, and I don't really know what to do.

I came here because my niece, who is studying geography in school, asked me for homework help and I was surprised to find "Southern Ocean" mentioned there. Even here textbooks are not consistent with this - some of them mention the Southern Ocean and some don't. Wouldn't it be nice if Wikipedia was more consistent?

So I don't really know what to do, but the problem is quite real. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:10, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Ocean

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Ocean's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "NASA-20140403":

• From Cassini–Huygens: Platt, Jane; Bell, Brian (April 3, 2014). "NASA Space Assets Detect Ocean inside Saturn Moon". NASA. Retrieved April 3, 2014.
• From Extraterrestrial liquid water: Platt, Jane; Bell, Brian (3 April 2014). "NASA Space Assets Detect Ocean inside Saturn Moon". NASA. Retrieved 3 April 2014.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 04:43, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

"Ocean" means "outer".

I don't believe the ancients ever used the phrase "World Ocean". "Ocean" means "Outer", so "World Ocean" means "World Outer" and doesn't make sense. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ocean_Sea#The_Ocean_Sea_-_a_page_of_its_own. --MarkFilipak (talk) 17:36, 4 June 2014 (UTC)