Brad deYoung Physics Memorial

The instructor for this course will be Brad deYoung who can be found in C-3000. The course deals with the physics of the processes in the ocean, providing an integrative view of the field of oceanography. The importance of physical processes to other aspects of oceanography is treated. Our goal is to learn about some of the key features of how the ocean works. Why do the large scale current systems look as they do? Why is the ocean stratified? How long does it take for water to move around in the ocean? How are the ocean and atmosphere coupled? What role does the ocean play in regulating the earth's atmosphere? We meet in room C-3067 from 9:00 to 10:30 on Tuesday and Thursdays. The outline for the course is Course outline Notes As available the course notes will be placed here. 1. Introductory Material 2. Equations of Motion 3. Circulation 4. Labrador Sea Assignments Assignment 1 Solutions Assignment 2 Solutions Assignment 3 Solutions Assignment 4 Solutions Assignment 5 Solutions Hints for the fourth assignment: (1) For the first question, in the last part, you just need to estimate the volume transport, consider the mass transport, now divide by density to get the volume transport and you should have a simple equation that has units of m2/s-1 (2) For ther second question this is Ekman pumping and the relevant equations are in the section on Ekman Pumping in Chapter 9. Term Paper The outline for term paper is here. Let me know if you have any questions about the paper. Miscellaneous things The article on salt fingers and double diffusion was published back in 1956 by Stommel. You can read the article here. Maruyama and colleagues did the expperiment, putting the pipe in the ocean and discovered that the upward velocity would be 212 m per day, which is about .212 cm/s, so not very fast. The article on what life would be like at low Reynold's number, when inertia just doesn't matter, is attached.

Last updated 12 April 2010