SIO 210: Introduction to Physical Oceanography

Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California San Diego

Fall 2012

Instructors: Lynne Talley, Myrl Hendershott and Jennifer MacKinnon TA: TBA 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 28: Lect. 1: Course Overview: [Talley]
• Oct 1: Lect. 2: Physical Properties of Seawater I [Talley]
• Oct 3: Lect. 3: Physical Properties of Seawater II [Talley]
• Oct 5: Lect. 4: Physical Properties of Seawater III [Talley] Assignment 1
• Oct 8: Lect. 5: Typical Distributions/Ocean Structure I [Talley]
• Oct 10: Lect. 6: Typical Distributions/Ocean Structure II [Talley]
• Oct 12: Lect. 7: Waves [Hendershott] Assignment 1 due
• Oct 15: Lect. 8: Tsunamis [Hendershott]
• Oct 17: Lect. 9: Tides [Hendershott]
• Oct 19: Lect. 10: Internal waves [MacKinnon] Assignment 2
• Oct 22: Lect. 11: Advection/Transports/Budgets [Talley]
• Oct 24: Lect. 12: Observational methods [Talley]
• Oct 26: Lect. 13: Data analysis methods [Talley]
• Oct 29:Lect. 14: Dynamics I (momentum) [Talley] Assignment 2 due; Project topic due
• Oct 31: Lect. 15: Dynamics II (rotation) [Talley]
• Nov 2: Lect. 16: Dynamics III (Geostrophy) [Talley]
• Nov 5: Mid-term Exam
• Nov 7: Lect. 17: Atmospheric circulation/surface forcing [Talley]
• Nov 9: Lect. 18: Dynamics IV (Ekman) [Talley]
• Nov 12: Veterans Day (no class)
• Nov 14: Lect. 19: Dynamics V (Potential vorticity, Sverdrup balance) [Talley] Assignment 3
• Nov 16: Lect. 20: Dynamics VI (Western boundary currents and eastern boundary currents); examples from the Pacific [Talley]
• Nov 19: Lect. 21: Pacific Ocean subtropical circulation (upper ocean) [Talley]
• Nov 21: Lect. 22: Pacific equatorial circulation and ENSO [Talley] Assignment 3 due
• Nov 23: Thanksgiving holiday
• Nov 26: Lect. 23: Indian Ocean (monsoons, subtropical, overturning) [Talley] Paper or project due
• Nov 28: Lect. 24: Atlantic (upper ocean) [Talley]
• Nov 30: Lect. 25: Atlantic (deep, meridional overturning circulation) [Talley] Assignment 4
• Dec 3: Lect. 26: Southern Ocean [Talley]
• Dec 5: Lect. 27: Eddy and higher frequency variability: NOTE: this will be the Indian and first part of the Southern Ocean lectures [Talley]
• Dec 7: Lect. 28: Global circulation summary NOTE: This will also include the end of the Southern Ocean lecture. [Talley] Assignment 4 due
• Dec 12 3-6 PM: Final exam (Vaughan 100)

Assignments

Problem Set 1, Due Oct. 12
Problem Set 1 Answer Key
Problem Set 2, Due Oct. 29 (changed)
Problem Set 2 Answer Key
Problem Set 3, Due Nov. 21
Problem Set 3 Answer Key
Problem Set 4, Due Dec. 7 (edited Dec. 4)
Problem Set 4 Answer Key

Short paper or project

Tutorials

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, to be placed on reserve

• 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