Coupled Atmosphere Ocean Dynamics

Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics of Climate Variability and Climate Change presents the patterns, mechanisms, and predictability of climate variability and anthropogenic climate change. Based on a graduate course the author has taught over 25 years, this book provides the physical foundation for those who are interested in fundamental questions such as: why climate varies from one year to another; how predictable climate is; and how climate will change in the face of increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This is the first comprehensive and systematic treatment of this subject that simultaneously draws on the latest research and is accessible for graduate students. The book takes a step-by-step systematic approach to coupled ocean-atmosphere interactions. This allows a wide range of comparative views: climate modes among and across different tropical ocean basins, ocean feedback on the atmosphere (in and out of the tropics), and spontaneous internal oscillation versus externally forced climate change. Such comparative views offer unprecedented insight into the dynamics of climate variability and predictability. This book can be used as supplementary reading for advanced undergraduate students, as coursework in climate dynamics, modeling, variability, and change, and as a reference book and research monograph for researchers in ocean, atmospheric, climate, and earth system sciences. Delivers the first authored textbook on ocean-atmosphere interactions that give rise to climate variability/predictability and shape regional patterns of anthropogenic climate change Contains historical accounts of major breakthroughs in the field Includes homework questions, helping to reinforce key concepts and applications

For advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students in atmospheric, oceanic, and climate science, Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics is an introductory textbook on the circulations of the atmosphere and ocean and their interaction, with an emphasis on global scales. It will give students a good grasp of what the atmosphere and oceans look like on the large-scale and why they look that way. The role of the oceans in climate and paleoclimate is also discussed. The combination of observations, theory and accompanying illustrative laboratory experiments sets this text apart by making it accessible to students with no prior training in meteorology or oceanography. * Written at a mathematical level that is appealing for undergraduates and beginning graduate students * Provides a useful educational tool through a combination of observations and laboratory demonstrations which can be viewed over the web * Contains instructions on how to reproduce the simple but informative laboratory experiments * Includes copious problems (with sample answers) to help students learn the material.

This book presents a unique and comprehensive view of the fundamental dynamical and thermodynamic principles underlying the large circulations of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system Dynamics of The Tropical Atmosphere and Oceans provides a detailed description of macroscale tropical circulation systems such as the monsoon, the Hadley and Walker Circulations, El Niño, and the tropical ocean warm pool. These macroscale circulations interact with a myriad of higher frequency systems, ranging from convective cloud systems to migrating equatorial waves that attend the low-frequency background flow. Towards understanding and predicting these circulation systems. A comprehensive overview of the dynamics and thermodynamics of large-scale tropical atmosphere and oceans is presented using both a “reductionist” and “holistic” perspectives of the coupled tropical system. The reductionist perspective provides a detailed description of the individual elements of the ocean and atmospheric circulations. The physical nature of each component of the tropical circulation such as the Hadley and Walker circulations, the monsoon, the incursion of extratropical phenomena into the tropics, precipitation distributions, equatorial waves and disturbances described in detail. The holistic perspective provides a physical description of how the collection of the individual components produces the observed tropical weather and climate. How the collective tropical processes determine the tropical circulation and their role in global weather and climate is provided in a series of overlapping theoretical and modelling constructs. The structure of the book follows a graduated framework. Following a detailed description of tropical phenomenology, the reader is introduced to dynamical and thermodynamical constraints that guide the planetary climate and establish a critical role for the tropics. Equatorial wave theory is developed for simple and complex background flows, including the critical role played by moist processes. The manner in which the tropics and the extratropics interact is then described, followed by a discussion of the physics behind the subtropical and near-equatorial precipitation including arid regions. The El Niño phenomena and the monsoon circulations are discussed, including their covariance and predictability. Finally, the changing structure of the tropics is discussed in terms of the extent of the tropical ocean warm pool and its relationship to the intensity of global convection and climate change. Dynamics of the Tropical Atmosphere and Oceans is aimed at advanced undergraduate and early career graduate students. It also serves as an excellent general reference book for scientists interested in tropical circulations and their relationship with the broader climate system.

How the Ocean : Atmosphere System Is Driven -- Transfer of Properties between Atmosphere and Ocean -- Properties of a Fluid at Rest -- Equations Satisfied by a Moving Fluid -- Adjustment under Gravity in a Nonrotating System -- Adjustment under Gravity of a Density-Stratified Fluid -- Effect of Rotation -- Gravity Waves in a Rotating Fluid -- Forced Motion -- Effects of Side Boundaries -- The Tropics -- Mid-Latitudes -- Instabilities, Fronts, and the General Circulation -- Units and Their SI Equivalents -- Useful Values -- Properties of Seawater -- Properties of Moist Air.

Coupled atmosphere-ocean models are at the core of numerical climate models. There is an extraordinarily broad class of coupled atmosphere-ocean models ranging from sets of equations that can be solved analytically to highly detailed representations of Nature requiring the most advanced computers for execution. The models are applied to subjects including the conceptual understanding of Earth's climate, predictions that support human activities in a variable climate, and projections aimed to prepare society for climate change. The present book fills a void in the current literature by presenting a basic and yet rigorous treatment of how the models of the atmosphere and the ocean are put together into a coupled system. The text of the book is divided into chapters organized according to complexity of the components that are coupled. Two full chapters are dedicated to current efforts on the development of generalist couplers and coupling methodologies all over the world.

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