FALL 2009 LINK IS HERE

SIO 210: Introduction to Physical Oceanography

Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California San Diego

Fall 2008 (OLD)

Instructors: Lynne Talley and Myrl Hendershott Time: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 2:00-2:50 Location: Hubbs 4500

Equatorial Pacific SST, courtesy of NOAA

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

• Sep 26: Lect. 1: Course Overview: [Talley]
• Sep 29: Lect. 2: Physical Properties of Seawater I [Talley]
• Oct 1: Lect. 3: Physical Properties of Seawater II [Talley]
• Oct 3: Lect. 4: Typical Distributions/Ocean Structure I [Talley] Assignment 1
• Oct 6: Lect. 5: Typical Distributions/Ocean Structure II [Talley]
• Oct 8: Lect. 6: Advection/Transports/Budgets I [Talley]
• Oct 10: Lect. 7: Advection/Transports/Budgets II [Talley] Assignment 1 due
• Oct 13: Lect. 8: Dynamics I (momentum) [Talley]
• Oct 15: Lect. 9: Dynamics II (rotation) [Talley]
• Oct 17: Lect. 10: Dynamics III (Geostrophy) [Mazloff] Assignment 2
• Oct 20: Lect. 11: Atmospheric circulation/surface forcing [Talley]
• Oct 22: Lect. 12: Dynamics IV (Ekman) [Talley]
• Oct 24: Lect. 13: Dynamics V (Sverdrup balance and western boundary currents) [Talley] Assignment 2 due
• Oct 27: Lect. 14 Catch-up on Sverdrup [Talley]
• Oct 29: Lect. 15: Observational methods and data analysis [Talley, Hubbs]
• Oct 31: Mid-term Exam (Note CHANGED DATE) (Vaughan)
• Nov 3: Lect. 16: Pacific Ocean (upper) [Talley, Hubbs]
• Nov 5: Lect. 17: Pacific Ocean: eastern boundary currents, equatorial [Talley, Vaughan]
• Nov 7: Lect. 18:Pacific equatorial circulation and ENSO [Talley, Vaughan] Short paper due
• Nov 10: Lect. 19: Waves/Tides I [Hendershott, Hubbs]
• Nov 12: Lect. 20: Waves/Tides II [Hendershott, Hubbs]
• Nov 14:Lect. 21: Waves/Tides III [Hendershott, Hubbs]
• Nov 17: Lect. 22: Waves/Tides IV [Hendershott, Hubbs]
• Nov 19: Lect. 23: Indian Ocean (monsoons, subtropical, overturning)[Talley, Hubbs] Assignment 3
• Nov 21: Lect. 24:Southern Ocean [Mazloff, Hubbs]
• Nov 24: Lect. 25: Atlantic (upper ocean) [Send, Hubbs]
• Nov 26: Lect. 26: Atlantic (deep, meridional overturning circulation) [Send, Hubbs] Assignment 4
• Nov 28: Thanksgiving
• Dec 1: Lect. 27: Global overturning circulation and water mass summary [Talley, Hubbs] Assignment 3 due
• Dec 3: Lect. 28: ENSO and Decadal climate variability (NAO, PDO, SAM, NAM) [Talley, Hubbs]
• Dec 5: Lect. 29: Decadal climate continued and anthropogenic climate change [Talley, Hubbs] Assignment 4 due
• Dec 10 3-6 PM: Final exam (Vaughan 100)

Assignments

Short paper

Tutorials

Previous year's math tutorial notes (Hendershott, 2007)

Grading

Primary texts - online

• Descriptive Physical Oceanography: An Introduction, draft of new 6th edition. by Lynne Talley, George Pickard, William Emery and James Swift
  As of August, 2008: All but chapters 9, 14.
  Chapters 3, 4, 5, 8 are available through course reserves; this is the maximum amount of content that can be posted by UCSD Library because of copyright issues.
• Introduction to Physical Oceanography. by Robert Stewart. This is an open source, online text ony, which includes a printable pdf and cover. The pdf version is the most up-to-date.
• Regional Oceanography: An Introduction. by Matthias Tomczak and Stuart Godfrey. (Link is to free download of pdf. Text is out of print.)

Other relevant texts, on reserve at library

• Regional Oceanography: An Introduction. by Matthias Tomczak and Stuart Godfrey. (Same as above.)
• Invitation to Oceanography by Paul Pinet. Online study tools.
• Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics by Adrian Gill pdf of Appndix 2 (properties of seawater)
• Evolution of Physical Oceanography edited by Bruce Warren and Carl Wunsch
• Descriptive Physical Oceanography: An Introduction. (Fifth Edition) by George Pickard and William Emery (See "Online texts" above for updated chapters.)
• 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.

Online resources

• Course reserves (electronic materials, and list of books physically on reserve at the library) and Electronic

• Basic math refreshers: Wolfram MathWorld (look at sio210 math concept link for suggestions)

• Hendershott, M. C., 2004. Lectures on tides, from Geophysical Fluid Dynamics 2004. Woods Hole Oceanog. Inst. Tech. Rept., WHOI-2005-08.E
• Munn, T., Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Change (selected pages in pdf for atmospheric circuation lecture)
• Waves notes (Hendershott) 11/05
• Proprties of seawater from the UNESCO tables, in fortran, matlab and c
Previous years:

• Talley, Hendershott. Fall, 2007.
• Talley, Robbins, Hendershott. Fall, 2006.
• Talley, Robbins, Hendershott. Fall, 2005.
• Talley, Robbins, Hendershott. Fall, 2004.
• Talley, Robbins, Hendershott. Fall, 2002.
• Talley, Hendershott. Fall, 2000.
• An outdated online bibliography
  
• A nice collection of classic papers on large-scale ocean circulation and related topics (Geoff Vallis, Princeton University)

Some previous exams

Contact Information