| Nonlinear Physical Oceanography: A Dynamical Systems Approach to the Large Scale Ocean Circulation and El Niño, Rev. and Enlarg Edition Contributor(s): Dijkstra, Henk A. (Author) |
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ISBN: 140202262X ISBN-13: 9781402022623 Publisher: Springer OUR PRICE: $104.49 Product Type: Hardcover Published: May 2005 Annotation: In this book, methodology of dynamical systems theory is applied to investigate the physics of the large-scale ocean circulation. Topics include the dynamics of western boundary currents such as the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean and the Kurosio in the Pacific Ocean, the stability of the thermohaline circulation, and the El Ni??o/Southern Oscillation phenomenon in the Tropical Pacific. The book also deals with the numerical methods to apply bifurcation analysis on large-dimensional dynamical systems, with tens of thousands (or more) degrees of freedom, which arise through discretization of ocean and climate models. The novel approach to understand the phenomena of climate variability is through a systematic analysis of the solution structure of a hierarchy of models using these techniques. In this way, a connection between the results of the different models within the hierarchy can be established. Mechanistic description of the physics of the results is provided and, where possible, links with results of state-of-the-art ocean (and climate) models and observations are sought. The reader is expected to have a background in basic fluid dynamics and applied mathematics, although the level of the text sometimes is quite introductory. Each of the chapters is rather self-contained and many details of derivations are provided. Exercises presented at the end of each chapter make it a perfect graduate-level text. This 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. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Science | Earth Sciences - Oceanography - Science | Earth Sciences - Meteorology & Climatology - Mathematics | Differential Equations - General |
| Dewey: 551.462 |
| LCCN: 00061095 |
| Series: Atmospheric and Oceanographic Sciences Library |
| Physical Information: 1.15" H x 6.54" W x 9.74" (2.36 lbs) 532 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In the ?rst edition of this book (publishedby Kluwer Academic in November 2000) the methodology of dynamical systems theory was introduced and appli- ~ cations of this theory to the large-scale ocean circulation and El Nino were p- vided. Surprisedby the favorable reactions, I decided to make a second edition of the book which could be more easily used as a textbook for a graduate (700-level) course. The ?rst edition has undergone a substantial rewrite on three aspects: (i)thetext has been adapted at manylocations to improve clarity and readability, (ii)many recent results on thewind-driven ocean circulation, thethermohaline ~ circulation and El Nino have been included, and (iii) a number of exercises have been added at the end of each chapter. In chapter 1, the description of what is known from observations on the global ocean circulation has been improved by including, for example, recent estimates of transport quantities. Both thechapters 2 and 3 have only slightly changed; in chapter 3, the text on homoclinic orbits has been extended as these type of phenomena have now clearly been found in the wind-driven double-gyre ocean circulation (as presented in chapter 5). In chapter 4, I have added a paragraph on the computation of isolated branches of steady states and the text on the iterative linear systems solvers has been shortened. |