Introduction to physical oceanography and climate

EPS 131 (Spring 2008)

Field trip to Woods Hole oceanographic institution, spring 2008. more photos here.

Instructor:

Eli Tziperman,

TF:

Laure Zanna, zanna@fas.harvard.edu, tel: 617-496-6352, office: Geological Museum, 24 Oxford St, room 401. Office Hours: Tuesdays 4-5pm, Geol. Mus 401;

Matlab Intro Session:

Thursday Feb 7th 9-10am, location: Geo Mus 103C

Section:

Mondays 4-5pm (starting Feb 11), location: Geo. Museum room 418.

Day, time:

Monday, Thursday, 2:30-4.

Location:

University Museum (24 Oxford St), first floor, room 105 (Daly Seminar Rm)

Textbooks

Outline

Detailed Syllabus

Additional reading

Requirements

Links

Announcements
Last updated: November 19, 2008
The final course time will be determined during the first two weeks of classes, to minimize conflicts with other courses for interested students
 
Feel free to write or call me with any questions:
Eli Tziperman; eli AT eps.harvard.edu
Office hours: call/ write.

Field trip to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI): March 13 2008; We'll be leaving Cambridge very early in the morning, back in the late afternoon. Our Host will be Dr. Bob Pickart; last time we visited to the R/V Atlantis and the submersible Alvin, plus toured the labs of WHOI; photos;

Homework:

Homework solutions:

What's the point of optional/ extra credit challenge problems: apart from the fun of doing them, they will count against homework problems in the same HW in which you may have missed an answer. . .

The 2008 movie competition: here;

The 2008 zeta vs xi competition: here;

Textbooks

Main ones:

• (Kn) J. A. Knauss, introduction to physical oceanography, 2nd edition, 1996, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Also interesting:

• (St) Robert H. Stewart, on-line physical oceanography book
• On-line version of 'Regional oceanography'
• (OU) The open university team, ocean circulation, 2nd ed, 2002.
• (OU-W) The open university team, waves, tides and shallow water processes, 2nd ed, 2002.
• (Ku) Kundo P.K. and Cohen I.M., Fluid mechanics. 2nd edition 2002.

Outline

This course will cover observations and the understanding of ocean phenomena from local surface beach waves to the effects of the oceans on global climate. We will discuss ocean waves, the Coriolis force and ocean currents, the large scale temperature and salinity distributions and more. As part of the ocean's role in climate we will cover the wind-driven circulation and the Gulf stream, the thermohaline circulation and the potential instability of Europe's climate due to global warming, El Nino events in the equatorial Pacific ocean, and more. The basic fluid dynamics equations will be gradually introduced. A field trip to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Code will be held during the course, which will be an opportunity to learn about practical aspects of sea-going oceanography as well.

The students will be introduced to the Matlab software for scientific computation and graphics, which will be used for some of the homework assignments.

Prerequisite: Mathematics/ Applied Mathematics 21, Physics 11/ 15, or equivalents, or permission of instructor.

Syllabus

(Detailed lecture notes, other supporting material.)

1. Outline and motivation
   

2. Temperature and salinity
   downloads;

3. Horizontal circulation I: currents, Coriolis force
   downloads;

4. Waves and oscillations I: basics
   downloads;

5. Sea-going physical oceanography Finally, the real stuff. Two lectures by Dr. Bob Pickart from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and a field trip to Woods Hole.

6. Friction moving icebergs and feeding the fish
   downloads;
   

7. The thermohaline circulation
   downloads;

8. Horizontal circulation II: Gulf Stream and other western boundary currents
   downloads;
   

9. El Nino
   downloads

10. Abrupt climate change
    downloads;

11. Some fluid dynamics fundamentals
    downloads;

12. Waves and oscillations II: deep ocean waves and waves affected by the Coriolis force
    downloads;

13. Misc Advanced topics (time permitting);

Additional reading

Beginning texts:

• G. L. Pickard and W. J. Emery, Descriptive Physical Oceanography - An Introduction, Butterworth Heinemann, 1990,
• Stephen Pond and George L. Pickard, Introductory dynamical Oceanography, 3rd edition, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1993,

Intermediate texts:

• Philander, S. G. H., El Niño, La Niña, and the Southern Oscillation., Academic Press, 1990,
• Benoit Cushman-Roisin, Introduction to geophysical fluid dynamics, Prentice-Hall, 1995,

Advanced texts:

• Pedlosky, J., 1987, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics., 2nd edition, Springer-Verlag
• Pedlosky, J., 1996, ocean circulation theory, Springer-Verlag, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York.
• Pedlosky, J., 2003, waves in the ocean and atmosphere., Springer-Verlag, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York.
• Gill, A. E, 1982, Atmosphere-ocean dynamics, Academic Press, London

Requirements

Homework will be given throughout the course. The best 80% of the homework will constitute 40% of the final grade. Each student will be invited to present a brief informal description of some aspects of the ocean circulation and its role in climate (20%), see details here for a list of possible subjects. The final exam will be a take home (40%).

Links

• This course was previously taught by Prof Allan Robinson
• Coriolis force movies: here and here;
• Greenpeace bottom trawling; Greenpeace ``save our seas''; and videos.
• Shifting baselines: ``pristine'';
• Three dimensional bottom topographies for any lon/lat coordinates: here.
• Recipe for internal ocean waves in a bottle: here (basically blue food coloring in water filling 3/4 of a bottle, and the rest filled with oil).