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Basics (Fall, 2008):

Professor: Ken Brink

508 289 2535

kbrink@whoi.edu

Timing:

Tuesdays: 10.30-12.00 MRF (WHOI: no link to MIT)

Thursdays: 2.30-4.00 Clark 271 (MIT: 9-152)

First class:

Thursday, Sept. 4

Last class:

Tuesday, December 9

Vacations:

Tuesday, October 14 (Columbus Day)(?)

Tuesday, November 11 (Veteran's Day)

Thursday, November 27 (Thanksgiving)

Reading Materials:

No formal textbook will be assigned. During the semester, reading assignments from the primary literature or in the form of review papers will be given.

A few books are useful for general reference, including:

Gill, A.E., 1982: Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics. Academic Press. (A really good introduction to a number of topics. Now somewhat dated, but very clear on what it does cover).

Brink, K.H., and A.R. Robinson (eds.), 1998: The Sea, volume 10. The Global Coastal Ocean Processes and Methods. John Wiley & Sons. (A collection of process-oriented review papers on a variety of coastal oceanographic topics, mainly physical).

Robinson, A.R., and K.H. Brink (eds.), 1998: The Sea, volume 11. The Global Coastal Ocean Regional Studies and Syntheses. John Wiley & Sons. (A collection of geographically based review papers together covering the physical oceanography of almost all of the world's coastal ocean).

Robinson, A.R., and K.H. Brink (eds.), 2005: The Sea, volume 13. The Global Coastal Ocean Multiscale Interdisciplinary Processes. Harvard University Press. (A collection of process-oriented review papers, primarily on non-physical topics).

-  A lateral wall blocks Ekman transport and leads to efficient wind driving

-  One-way propagation of information (Coastal-trapped waves)

-  Relative (compared to deep ocean) importance of linear physics

-  Importance of buoyancy forcing

-  Anisotropy, relative importance of the ‘weather” frequency band.

-  Isolation (apparently) from open ocean flow patterns. But?????

-  High biological activity

-  other

A rough syllabus (for 26 classes):

 Introduction to the coastal ocean: run through data-based examples of the above attributes. Generalized Taylor-Proudman theorem, and discuss what can violate it (time dependence, inertia, etc.) (1 lecture).

Boundary layers:

• Surface mixed/Ekman layer (1 lecture)
• Bottom boundary layers, sloping bottom effects (2 lectures)

Hydrostatic Waves in the coastal ocean (unforced, undamped) (3 lectures)

• Kelvin wave
• Edge waves
• Shelf waves (get to Huthnance picture)
• Stratification with coastal-trapped waves

Tides (5 lectures):

• Introduction to tidal forces (astronomy, etc.)
• Ocean-scale response
• Tides in the coastal ocean: Clarke theory and resonances (like Fundy)
• What tidal currents look like (e.g. Werner)
• Tidal rectification
• Tidal mixing and fronts
• Cross-front transport  (Franks and Chen)
• Internal tides, solitons. Implications for dissipation

Wind forcing (3 classes):

• 2-D simple problem. Role of damping (frequency dependence). Development of alongshore currents. Layered cross-shelf flow.
• 3-D problem: wind-driven coastal-trapped waves; “arrested topographic waves”

Interlude: some concepts in observational oceanography (2 lectures)

• Correlations, time scales, synopticity
• Simple ideas on spectral analysis

Wave forcing in the surf zone. (1 class)

• Simple theory
• Observational evidence

Student lectures (1 class). Wind driving

Buoyancy forcing (4 classes)

• Estuary physics: description of inflow/outflow
• Buoyancy current in 2-layer, infinitely deep ocean
• Helfrich/Lentz synthesis
• Wind effects

Student lectures (1 class). Buoyancy effects

• Coastal oceans should be largely isolated from the deep ocean, but they are not. E.g., relation of coastal sea level (at very long time scales) to basin scale wind curl. E.g., Yang’s western Pacific work, etc.
• If bottom boundary layers are slippery, where does the energy go? What limits flow amplitudes?
• How do we account for biological activity in the coastal ocean?
• Shelf/ocean exchanges
• Mean alongshore flows. Neptune and other exotica