Nonlinear Physical Oceanography

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xviii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Henk A. Dijkstra

   Pages 1-31

3. Background Material

   • Henk A. Dijkstra

   Pages 33-53

4. A Dynamical Systems Point of View

   • Henk A. Dijkstra

   Pages 55-103

5. Numerical Techniques

   • Henk A. Dijkstra

   Pages 105-150

6. The Wind-Driven Ocean Circulation

   • Henk A. Dijkstra

   Pages 151-224

7. The Thermohaline Ocean Circulation

   • Henk A. Dijkstra

   Pages 225-320

8. The Dynamics and Physics of ENSO

   • Henk A. Dijkstra

   Pages 321-427

9. Back Matter

   Pages 429-458

   PDF

In this book, the methodology of dynamical systems theory is applied to investigate the physics of the global ocean circulation. Topics include the dynamics of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean, the stability of the thermohaline circulation and the El Niño/Southern Oscillation phenomenon in the Tropical Pacific. On the other hand, the book also deals with the numerical methods for applying bifurcation analysis on large dimensional dynamical systems, with thousands or more degrees of freedom, which arise through discretization of ocean models. The novel approach in understanding the phenomena of climate variability is through a systematic analysis within a hierarchy of models using these techniques. In this way, a nice overview is obtained of the relations between the results of the different models within the hierarchy. Mechanistic description of the physics of the results is provided and, where possible, links with results of state-of-the-art models and observations are sought. The reader is expected to have a background in basic incompressible fluid dynamics and applied mathematics, although the level of the text is mixed and sometimes quite introductory. Each chapter is rather self-contained and many details of derivations are provided. The book is aimed at graduate students and researchers in meteorology, oceanography, and related fields who are interested in tackling fundamental problems in dynamical oceanography and climate dynamics.

• Atlantic Ocean
• Degrees of freedom
• Meteorology
• Ocean
• Oceanography
• Southern Oscillation
• digital elevation model
• dynamische Systeme
• numerical methods

• Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

  Henk A. Dijkstra

Policies and ethics