Sinai Diving Guide 1. [antikvár]

isJiiSÉiÉatea' 'Mi T Gebei Katherine 2,637 m he Red Sea is narrow and elongated, bordered by mountains with an average height of 1,000-1,500 meters and with some peaks in the Sinai peninsular such as Gebel Katherine and Gebel Musa (or Mount Sinai) that are more than 2,500 meters high. It has a deep bottom with a wide, longitudinal, median sea-floor trench which on a level with Suakin (Sudan) is 2,850 meters deep (the Suakin Trench). The Red Sea is connected to the Indian Ocean by the Straits of Bob e/-Mondeb,'the Gate of Tears,' a passage only 29 kilometers wide whose floor rises abruptly to only I 34 meters deep, thus limiting the water exchange with the Indian Ocean. Because of the high air temperature and aridity of the regions around the Red Sea, its evaporation rate - about 200 centimeters per year (approximately 900 billion cubic meters of water) - is a crucial physical factor The lack of freshwater from rivers (the Red Sea has no influents) and the limited water exchange with the Indian Ocean, which is just enough to compensate for the loss due to evaporation, causes a significant increase in salinity which is the highest of all the seas on Earth; 38%o (parts per thousand), which becomes 41 %o in the Suez and Aqaba gulfs, as opposed to the average ocean level of 35%o. Due to the dry air and action of the wind, there is a marked difference between the summer and winter water temperature (10 °C or degrees Celsius), especially in the -1,829 m 'tween the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba, Gebel Katherine in the middle