DESCRIPTIVE PHYSICAL OCEANOGRAPHY

Catalog description

Explores fundamental mass, force, and energy balances of the ocean; geostrophy; planetary boundary layers; wind-driven and thermohaline circulation; vorticity; air-sea fluxes of heat, salt, moisture, and momentum. Applies these balances through descriptive examination of the ocean-global heat budget; surface current systems; abyssal circulation. Study of variability on a variety of time and space scales. Uses instrumentation and platforms used for observing the ocean.