File:THERMOCLINE.png · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
thermocline
Sign in to savethumb|Graph showing a tropical ocean thermocline (depth vs. temperature). Note the rapid change between 100 and 1000 meters. The temperature is nearly constant after 1500 meters depth.
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- Thermoclines
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- purl.obolibrary.org/obo/ENVO_00002269
- partially coincident with
- metalimnion
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Encyclopedic overview
6 sectionsContents
- Oceans
- Thermocline seasonality
- Other water bodies
- Atmosphere
- See also
- References
thumb|Graph showing a tropical ocean thermocline (depth vs. temperature). Note the rapid change between 100 and 1000 meters. The temperature is nearly constant after 1500 meters depth.
A thermocline (also known as the thermal layer or the metalimnion in lakes) is a distinct layer based on temperature within a large body of fluid (e.g. water, as in an ocean or lake; or air, e.g. an atmosphere) with a high gradient of distinct temperature differences associated with depth. In the ocean, the thermocline divides the upper mixed layer from the calm deep water below.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “thermocline” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.