Physical Oceanography and Climate (ATOC 4730/5730)

El Niño is a global phenomenon. Sea surface temperature anomaly during the 1997–98 El Niño. Source: .

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Synopsis: A quantitative introduction to the field of physical oceanography, with special emphasis on the ocean’s interaction with the atmosphere and role in the global climate system. Topics include the ocean’s heat and salt budgets, the equations of motion, wind–driven and thermohaline circulations, equatorial oceanography, ocean–atmosphere coupling, natural climate variability such as El Niño, and the ocean’s role in—and response to—anthropogenic climate change. Theory is complemented by exposure to state–of–the–art instrumental data, satellite observations, and numerical models.

 

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Course goals:

  1. Awareness. Students will gain a broad awareness and appreciation of the important role of the ocean in the global climate system.
  2. Knowledge. Students will be able to identify and describe the key physics including conservation laws governing the properties (e.g., temperature) and circulation (e.g., gyres) of the ocean.
  3. Intuition. Students will be able to apply general principles that govern how the ocean and atmosphere interact toward predicting behaviors in the coupled ocean–atmosphere system.
  4. Tools. Students will become familiar with the methods (e.g., data and models) by which we observe and understand the state of the Earth system and how it changes over time.
  5. Skills. Students will be able to correctly interpret common visualizations of data in the geosciences, such as spatial maps or time graphs.
  6. Curiosity, critical thinking and problem solving. Based on insightful interpretations of data [#5], students will be able to ask deep questions [#1], form hypotheses [#2–3], and propose ways to test such hypotheses [#4].
  7. Integration and discovery. Students will have the opportunity to bring knowledge, ideas, and problems from their own discipline to bear on material covered in this course, and vice versa.
  8. Fun. The best advice a mentor gave me was “Have fun,” so we will have some fun.

Prerequisites: Undergraduates (4730): ATOC 1060, 3070, or 3600, and one semester of calculus. Graduate students (5730): This course is intended for graduate students from departments other than ATOC who wish to complement their course of study or research with useful exposure to physical oceanography and climate science, including those students pursuing the . Graduate students in ATOC should refer to the core course ATOC 5051.

Textbook:, Kristopher B. Karnauskas, 2020, Cambridge University Press. The book can be purchased directly from the CU Bookstore, the publisher, or Amazon.