These physical factors reduce the effect of high salinity caused by evaporation and cold water in the north and relatively hot water in the south.Ĭlimate: The climate of the Red Sea is the result of two distinct monsoon seasons a northeasterly monsoon and a southwesterly monsoon. The main reasons for the better development of reef systems along the Red Sea is because of its greater depths and an efficient water circulation pattern, The Red Sea water mass exchanges its water with the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean via the Gulf of Aden. The Red Sea lies between arid land, desert and semi-desert. Still today, in spite of patrols by the major maritime fleets in the waters of the Red Sea, the Suez Canal has never recovered its supremacy over the Cape route, which is believed to be less vulnerable. However, the Six Day War culminated in the closure of the Suez Canal from 1967 to 1975. After the Second World War, the Americans and Soviets exerted their influence whilst the volume of oil tanker traffic intensified. The posts were gradually dismantled following the First World War. At the time, the British, French, and Italians shared the trading posts. The Suez Canal was opened in November 1869. Lepere, who took part in it revitalised the plan for a canal which had been envisaged during the reign of the Pharaohs. Although he failed in his mission, the engineer J.B. In 1798, France charged General Bonaparte with invading Egypt and capturing the Red Sea. It was only from the 15th century onwards that Europe began to show interest in this area. However, it was a Greek sailor, Hippalus, who conferred an international dimension upon the Red Sea in his manifesto on the voyage of the Eritrea Sea and thus opened it up to an immense and exclusive trade with Asia. In the Bible, the story of The Exodus tells how Moses, the son of a slave woman, leads the Israelites across its headwaters, (presumably the Reed Sea which has since disappeared because of the Suez Canal water diversion) to freedom, by using the powers of God to part the waters. The Egyptians were the first to attempt a mission of exploration in the Red Sea. The basis of this theory is that some Asiatic languages used colour words to refer to the cardinal directions.Ī final theory suggests that it was named so because because it borders the Egyptian Desert which the ancient Egyptians called the Dashret or "red land" therefore it would have been the sea of the red land. Yet another theory favored by some modern scholars is the name red is referring to the direction south, the same way the Black Sea's name may refer to north. There is also speculation that the name Red Sea came from a mistranslation of what should have been Reed Sea in the Biblical account of the Exodus.Īnother hypothesis is that the name comes from the Himarites, a local group whose own name means red. Edom, meaning "ruddy complexion", is also an alternative Hebrew name for the red-faced biblical character Esau (brother of Jacob), and the nation descended from him, the Edomites, which in turn provides yet another possible origin for Red Sea. Some suggest that it refers to the mineral-rich red mountains nearby which are called Harei Edom (הרי אדום). It may signify the seasonal blooms of the red-colored cyanobacteria Trichodesmium erythraeum near the water surface. The name of the sea does not indicate the color of the water, because it is not red in colour. Red Sea is a direct translation of the Latin Mare Erythraeum, Arabic Al-Baḥr Al-Aḥmar (البحر الأحمر), and Tigrinya Qeyḥ bāḥrī (ቀይሕ ባሕሪ). The Red Sea is regarded as one of the most saline water bodies in the world that is governed by the effects of the water circulation pattern, resulting from evaporation and wind stress in the Red Sea. The sea is the habitat of over 1,000 invertebrate species and 200 soft and hard corals and is the world's most northern tropical sea. It has a maximum depth of 8,200 feet (2,500 m) in the central median trench and an average depth of 1,640 feet (500 m), but there are also extensive shallow shelves, noted for their marine life and corals. Occupying a part of the Great Rift Valley, the Red Sea has a surface area of roughly 174,000 square miles (450,000 km²): being roughly 1,200 miles (1,900 km) long and, at its widest point, over 190 miles (300 km) wide. In the north are the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba or the Gulf of Eilat and the Gulf of Suez (leading to the Suez Canal). The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb sound and the Gulf of Aden. The Red Sea is an inlet of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia.
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