Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 3 sessions / week, 1 hour / session
Prerequisites
Fluid Dynamics of the Atmosphere and Ocean (12.800)
Recommended Textbooks
Pedlosky, Joseph. Geophysical Fluid Dynamics. New York, NY: Springer Verlag, c1979. ISBN: 9780387903682.
Gill, Adrian E. Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics. New York, NY: Academic Press, 1982. ISBN: 9780122835223.
Basic Topics to be Covered
I. Fundamental Conservation and Balance Principles for Large-scale Flow (4 weeks)
- Hydrostatic balance
- Conservation of potential vorticity
- The invertibility principle
- The shallow water equations
- The Rossby number and the quasi-geostrophic equations
- Geostrophic adjustment
- The superposition principle
- Higher-order balance systems
- Separation of flow into balanced and unbalanced parts
- The “omega equation”
II: Generation and Dissipation of Quasi-balanced Eddies (4 weeks)
- Rossby waves
- Barotropic instability
- The Rayleigh and Fjørtoft theorems
- The Eady model
- The Charney model
- The Charney-Stern theorem
- Surface friction and Ekman Layers
- Western Boundary Currents
- Effects of phase change of water
- Effects of orography: topographic waves
- Observed modes of eddy development
- Generation and dissipation of ocean eddies
III. Equilibrated Quasi-balanced Systems (1 week)
- The Eliassen-Palm theorem
- Two-dimensional and Quasi-geostrophic turbulence and inverse cascades
- The Rhines scale and quasi-balanced jets
- Equilibration of baroclinic eddies in the ocean
