Instructor:

Eli Tziperman, office hours: please see FAS course web page.

TF:

Chris Horvat, horvat@fas.harvard.edu. Tel, office, office Hours: please see FAS course web page.

Day, time:

Monday, Thursday, 2:30-4.

Location:

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

Field Trip!

To Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Thursday, April 3, 2014. Departing early morning, returning around 6pm.

Matlab Intro Session:

date TBA (Feb 2014) time TBA, location: TBA

Section:

time TBA, location: TBA.

Important events…:

 
Field trips to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014.

EPS 131 Oscar events: 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014.

zeta vs xi (ζ vs ξ) competition: 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014.

Contents

(Obligatory & fun) field trip to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI): April 3 2014. We’ll be leaving Cambridge very early in the morning, back in the late afternoon. Our Host will be Dr. Bob Pickart; in previous trips we visited the R/V Atlantis, R/V Knorr, the submersible Alvin, and toured the labs of WHOI; photos;

1 Textbooks

Main ones, although it wont be followed very closely:

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

Also useful: see additional readings below.

2 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 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 21ab or Applied Mathematics 21ab; Physics 15abc or 12ab or applied physics 50ab; or equivalents/ permission of instructor.

3 Syllabus

Detailed lecture notes, directory with all source materials for the lectures.

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);

4 Additional reading

Beginning texts:

• John A. Knauss, Introduction to Physical Oceanography, 320 pages; 2nd edition, 2005.
• J. Marshall and R. A. Plumb, Atmosphere, ocean, and climate dynamics, Elsevier Academic Press, Burlington, MA, USA, 2008, 319pp.
• 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.
• Open university: Ocean Circulation (Second Edition); Evelyn Brown, Angela Colling, Dave Park, John Phillips, Dave Rothery and John Wright
• Open university: Waves, Tides and Shallow-Water Processes, Second Edition;
• (St) Robert H. Stewart, on-line physical oceanography book
• On-line version of ’Regional oceanography’

Intermediate texts:

• Philander, S. G. H., El Nino, La Nina, and the Southern Oscillation., Academic Press, 1990,
• (Ku) Kundo P.K. and Cohen I.M., Fluid mechanics. 2nd edition 2002.
• Benoit Cushman-Roisin, Introduction to geophysical fluid dynamics, Prentice-Hall, 1995,

Advanced texts:

• Vallis, G., 2005, Atmospheric and oceanic fluid dynamics, fundamentals and large-scale circulation, Cambridge University Press.
• 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

5 Requirements

Quasi-weekly homework will be given throughout the course. The best 90% 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 and possibly do a class presentation of a fluid experiment (30%), see details here for a list of possible subjects. The final exam may be a take home (30%).

6 Links

• This course was previously taught by Prof Allan Robinson
• Coriolis force movies: here and here;
• Greenpeace “bottom trawling” and Greenpeace “save our seas”, see here.
• Shifting baselines: “pristine”;
• NOVA program about the Sumatra Tsunami of 2004 here;
• Ocean acidification NRDC video
• PBS “ocean adventures” videos, in particular: Orca (killer whales) hunting (5 min); the great Pacific garbage patch (4 minutes);
• Ocean data sources: Marine Explorer, Ocean Data Viewer, and the IRI/LDEO Climate Data Library.