SIO 210: Introduction to Physical Oceanography

Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California San Diego

Fall 2011

Instructors: Lynne Talley, Myrl Hendershott and Jennifer MacKinnon TA: Xue Fan Time: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 2:00-2:50 Location: Vaughan 100

Course Overview

The course url is http://www-pord.ucsd.edu/~ltalley/sio210. The notes and figures are background for the coursework. They are evolving and informal. They may not be used for other purposes without permission. Figures from copyrighted sources include the reference.

Course requirements: two graded exams; bi-weekly problem sets; 1 written report. Study questions are provided throughout the course, but will not be graded.
Self-organized study groups are highly recommended. We are happy to meet with students and study groups.

Syllabus

Note: prior to a lecture, the links tend to be to previous year's lectures. Updated links are made available as lectures are given.

• Sep 23: Lect. 1: Course Overview: [Talley]
• Sep 26: Lect. 2: Physical Properties of Seawater I [Talley]
• Sep 28: Lect. 3: Physical Properties of Seawater II [Talley]
• Sep 30: Lect. 4: Physical Properties of Seawater III [Talley] Assignment 1
• Oct 3: Lect. 5: Typical Distributions/Ocean Structure I [Talley]
• Oct 5: Lect. 6: Typical Distributions/Ocean Structure II [Talley]
• Oct 7: Lect. 7: Advection/Transports/Budgets [Talley]
• Oct 10: Lect. 8: Observational methods [Talley] Assignment 1 due
• Oct 12: Lect. 9: Data analysis methods [Talley]
• Oct 14: Lect. 10: Dynamics I (momentum) [Talley]
• Oct 17: Lect. 11: Dynamics II (rotation) [Talley] Assignment 2
• Oct 19: Lect. 12: Dynamics III (Geostrophy) [Talley]
• Oct 21: Lect. 13: Waves [Hendershott]
• Oct 24: Lect. 14: Tsunamis [Hendershott] Assignment 2 due; Paper topic due
• Oct 26: Lect. 15: Tides [Hendershott]
• Oct 28: Lect. 16: Internal waves [MacKinnon]
• Oct 31: Mid-term Exam
• Nov 2: Lect. 17: Atmospheric circulation/surface forcing [Talley]
• Nov 4: Lect. 18: Dynamics IV (Ekman) [Talley] Assignment 3
• Nov 7: Lect. 19: Dynamics V (Potential vorticity, Sverdrup balance) [Talley]
• Nov 9: Lect. 20: Dynamics VI (Western boundary currents and eastern boundary currents); examples from the Pacific [Talley]
• Nov 11: Veterans Day Holiday
• Nov 14: Lect. 21: Pacific Ocean subtropical circulation (upper ocean) [Talley] Assignment 3 due
• Nov 16: Lect. 22: Pacific equatorial circulation and ENSO [Talley]
• Nov 18: Lect. 23: Indian Ocean (monsoons, subtropical, overturning) [Talley]
• Nov 21: Lect. 24: Atlantic (upper ocean) [Talley] Assignment 4
• Nov 23: Lect. 25: Atlantic (deep, meridional overturning circulation) [Talley] Paper or project due
• Nov 25: Thanksgiving holiday
• Nov 28: Lect. 26: Southern Ocean [Talley]
• Nov 30: Lect. 27: Global circulation summary [Talley]
• Dec 2: Lect. 28: Decadal climate variability (NAO, PDO, SAM, NAM) [Talley] (This lecture cancelled for 2011.) Assignment 4 due
• Dec 7 3-6 PM: Final exam (Vaughan 100): 1 page of your own notes are allowed (front and back of paper, printed or handwritten)

Assignments

Problem Set 1, Due Oct. 7 (extended to Oct. 10)
Problem Set 1 answer key
Problem Set 2, Due Oct. 24 (with further clarifications added Oct. 21)
Problem Set 2 answer key
Problem Set 3, Due Nov. 14
Problem Set 3 answer key
Problem Set 4, Due Dec. 2
Problem Set 4 answer key

Short paper or project

Tutorials

Some previous math tutorial notes (Hendershott, 2007)

Grading

Primary texts - online

• Descriptive Physical Oceanography: An Introduction, 6th edition. by Lynne Talley, George Pickard, William Emery and James Swift
  
• Java Ocean Atlas exercises for Descriptive Physical Oceanography (part of the text)
• Introduction to Physical Oceanography. by Robert Stewart. This is an open source, online text only, which includes a printable pdf and cover. The pdf version is the most up-to-date.
  One copy of the printout is on reserve for SIO 210 in the SIO library (will be as of 10/6/2010)

Other relevant texts, on reserve at SIO library

• Regional Oceanography: An Introduction. by Matthias Tomczak and Stuart Godfrey.
• Invitation to Oceanography by Paul Pinet. Online study tools.
• Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics by Adrian Gill pdf of Appendix 2 (properties of seawater)
• Introduction to physical oceanography by John Knauss
• Introduction to geophysical fluid dynamics by Benoit Cushman-Roisin
• Atmosphere, ocean, and climate dynamics : an introductory text by John Marshall and R. Alan Plumb
• Evolution of Physical Oceanography edited by Bruce Warren and Carl Wunsch
• Ocean Circulation and Climate: observing and modelling the global ocean. Ed. G. Siedler, J. Church and J. Gould, Academic Press, 2001.
• Ocean Circulation. Open University Press, Pergamon.

Other online resources

• Hendershott, M. C., 2004. Lectures on tides, from Geophysical Fluid Dynamics 2004. Woods Hole Oceanog. Inst. Tech. Rept., WHOI-2005-08.E
• Waves notes (Hendershott) 11/05
• Proprties of seawater from the UNESCO tables, in fortran, matlab and c
• A nice collection of classic papers on large-scale ocean circulation and related topics (Geoff Vallis, Princeton University)
• UCAR MetEd online course, including unit on currents. You will have to register, but it's free. Obviously you don't have to do the quizzes.
• Basic math refreshers: Wolfram MathWorld (look at sio210 math concept link for suggestions)
• SIO 210 from fall 2009 (Hendershott, Winant, Send, MacKinnon)

Some previous exams

Contact Information