The regional climatic type that is dominated by its propinquity to the sea is known as a maritime climate or, sometimes, oceanic climate or marine climate; the terms oceanic climate and marine climate, however, are not greatly favored because they may be misread to mean climates over the ocean rather than a land climate bordering on the ocean. A marine weather observation is one taken from a ship at sea; it has nothing to do with maritime weather. The technical measure of maritime character is oceanicity, the converse of continentality.
Maritime air and a maritime air mass refer to a type of air that has developed over or passed over an appreciable body of water, thereby obtaining a high moisture content. A secondary factor is that it has usually picked up a large quantity of salt nuclei from sea spray that will favor the nucleation of water droplets when onshore winds bring the clouds over hills or orographic barriers, causing uplift and precipitation.
Maritime climates are...
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Cross references
Climate and climate change; Climate data: sources; Evapotranspiration; Lakes; Maritime zones
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Fairbridge, R.W., Oliver, J.E. (1998). Martime climate, oceanicity. In: Encyclopedia of Hydrology and Lakes. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Dordrecht . https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4497-6_150
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