Ocean Circulation, Dynamics, and Climate at COAS

The ocean is an essential component of the Earth climate system and the physical environment that sustains human, as well as marine, life. The large-scale motions of the Earth's ocean and their transport of heat, energy, and materials, are dynamic elements of this planetary system. These motions are constrained by the Earth's rotation and by their small aspect ratio: the ocean is thin relative to the solid Earth in roughly the same proportion as an apple skin is to an apple. As a consequence of these constraints, their character is very different from that of fluid motions that we experience more directly in daily life.

COAS physical oceanographers study many aspects of large-scale ocean circulation and the role of the ocean in the Earth's climate system, through research projects that range from long-term observational programs to analysis of basic theoretical problems in geophysical fluid dynamics.

Examples of faculty research projects include:

• SST Influence on Surface Wind Stress in Numerical Weather Prediction and Climate Models
• Westward Propagation of Planetary Waves Observed from Topex/Poseidon: Theory and Implications
• Northeast Pacific Long Term Observation Program
• South Atlantic Climate Change
• World Ocean Circulation Experiment Current Meter Data Archive
• North Pacific Hydrobase Climatology
• Global Observations of Oceanic Rossby Waves
• Global Atlas of the First-Baroclinic Rossby Radius of Deformation and Gravity-Wave Phase Speed

Research at COAS is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, and the Office of Naval Research.